The author indeed does not properly cite the relevant literature (i.e. Buehler, 1957; Jobe and David, 1992; Lloyd & Kabaila, 2003) when building the ground for introducing the method, but the method itself is NEW! So…., almost new since it was in the center of my thesis two years ago (though never published other than in a book). By the way, I properly acknowledged both authors who contributed to the method calling this new limits B-square, i.e. for *B*arnard and *B*uhler. Section 3 of Wang (2010) repeats my explanations almost word for word!

Should I claim plagiarism as well? I don’t think so - too busy with the new things and the procedure is so intuitive that it was likely to be rediscovered! Plus the method never appeared in the mainstream literature, which of course is in contrast to Buehler (1957), Jobe and David (1992) and Lloyd & Kabaila (2003).

In my career I have seen a number of examples of published papers which rediscover results, or reinvent ideas that are clearly published previously. Sometimes these subsequent papers come to over-shadow the original, especially if the authors of the rediscovering manuscript are very well known or connected so that they accumulate more citations. This is a problem in statistics, but an even bigger one in econometrics.

Sadly, many econometricians who work on inferential methodology believe that it is legitimate to republish ideas from statistics under the guise of “introducing the idea to the field”. This is just a cheap scam. All decent econometricians would read the prominent statistical journals for relevant ideas and methods. In fact, I cannot think of any established econometrician who has not published at least one paper in a statistical journal anyway.

The pressure to publish seems to have forced people to forget their obligation to cite and acknowledge the insights of others whose work came before theirs. Sadly, this seems to have affected many senior researchers, who can sometimes identify too much with their research, rather than be a truly objective scholar doing what they do not for the glory, but for the interest.

Over-taxed volunteer referees and editors are going to make mistakes. So, what is the solution? Clearly in our reports to editors as referees, we should request the authors to more accurately cite previous work. But the move by the The Annals in publishing a 2 page letter of this type is a more effective approach. It creates an incentive to keep authors honest. If JASA, JRSS B & Biometrika adopted this policy, and we as authors write to the journals, you will find that accurate citation and acknowledgement would really take hold.