Serial plagiarist outed

A 63-year-old German economist has for decades falsely claimed an affiliation with the University of Maastricht, in the Netherlands, according to an article in tomorrow’s issue of Nature. The economist, Hans-Werner Gottinger, also appears to be a serial plagiarist, according to Nature’s report.

Mr. Gottinger’s deceptions began to unravel two months ago, after an attentive reader noticed that a paper he published in the journal Research Policy in 1993 had pilfered a string of complex equations from a 1980 issue of another journal. The editors of Research Policy started to sniff around — and their plagiarism investigation eventually turned into something much larger. When they contacted Mr. Gottinger’s ostensible employers in Maastricht, they learned that he had never worked there. According to Nature, Mr. Gottinger has claimed an affiliation with the Dutch university since the mid-1980s.

Here's the post at the Chronicle's news blog. The Nature story (behind the paywall) is here.