How prevalent it is for economists to cite working papers that do not exist?
Here is the discussion.
https://x.com/jt\_kerwin/status/2056982493610545314
In care you do not want to visit X, here is what the tweet says. The poster is Jason Kerwin, an economist at University of Washington.
He first says:
There are a number of important economics citations out there that do not exist. As in, people cite them, it is standard to cite them, referees may ask you to cite them, and the underlying paper does not exist anywhere and never has.
(And no, I will not name names!)
He then follow up with this:
How is this possible? In econ we cite working papers, not just publications. Sometimes things are presented but never actually posted. People finds a way to credibly cite a “paper” written by someone famous—>others copy them—>citogenesis,
He then concludes his thread with this:
The applied econ department at Minnesota had an amazing now-retired former librarian, Linda Eells, who could dig up any paper that actually existed. I sicced her on some of these and. When she says that nothing exists, I believe her.