We are all aware that plagiarism exists, and RePEc has helped expose quite a few cases through its open bibliographies. But sanctions for plagiarism are rather limited. An offended party may complain with the administration of the accused offender, in some cases without consequences, and in others with sanctions that can lead to dismissal. But the now convicted offender may simply take a new job as if nothing happened, the new employer being oblivious to what happened.
Economics does not have an ethics board that could deal with such cases beyond the current employer of an accused offender. There is now a proposal to create a committee dedicated to plagiarism. This committee would examine cases and vote on sanctions which may go all the way to publicly exposing the plagiarist. A group of volunteers have are discussed a simple set of procedures. Over the next month, the plan is to solicit comments from the public through this blog and call for further volunteers to participate in the committee. After that the committee would become active and deal with any new plagiarism cases that come to its attention. Please contact any current member to participate.
To view the current proposal and committee members, see a simple and bare bones site at plagiarism.repec.org. The committee awaits your reaction. Beyond comments, you can also vote your reaction below.
Posted by Christian Zimmermann 
The RePEc Blog 