Sorry I had missed your post, Christine; I think I just didn't read the Conglomerate that day. I found the link myself at the Greedy Clerks Board, which is where I gave the "hat tip."

Is the issue politeness or somewhat of an ethical obligation? If the latter, does that make bloggers more like journalists? Various journalism associations adopt codes of ethics. But how are such codes enforced? Journalism wishes to be considered as a profession. But to be a journalist (or a blogger), special training and education is not required and the First Amendment proscribes governmental controls under the speech/press clauses. So if bloggers adopt codes of ethics, how would they be enforced and by whom? Consider the legal, medical and certain other long considered professions and the enforcement of rules of conduct, ethics, etc. If rules or codes of conduct or ethics cannot be enforced, then of what real value are they? If bloggers wish to be considered as being engaged in a profession, then like journalists they will have a hard time making their case. Meantime, let's enjoy journalism and blogging as we (as individuals, not as members of the press) express our First Amendment speech privileges.

Hey, Orin -- no problem. I didn't own that audio file. I "discovered" it in the same sense that the Pilgrims discovered Massachusetts or a 15 year-old discovers the Cure.

Isn't the blogosphere the ultimate "marketplace of ideas?" If two or more people are "selling" the same wares, it's likely that the one with the best writing style, most persuasion, best and most creative angle will get the largest viewership. Having to cite to or attribute every other blogger out there talking about the same issue or story would essentially drown out the storyline with a cacophony of "Hey, I heard over here that ..." Not nearly as useful to the consumer of ideas. Of course, where one blogger is quoting directly or precisely paraphrasing, the attribution or citation is essential. But to do typical "preemption" checks, as many law reviews (if not all) would do before agreeing to publish an article, seems fruitless and certainly not an "ethical" requirement per se. All the blogs I have read appear to be very good about linking to or otherwise giving credit to those fellow bloggers or ether-writers that saw a story or highlighted an issue first. I think that is about all one can ask from the blogosphere.

And for what it is worth, (not much!) I linked to the 7th Circuit argument too (without looking at the Conglomerate)...

Unfortunately, I cannot post the link here because Typepad is convinced that any Crescat link is comment-spam.

"In writing a law review article with an economics angle, I review the economic literature."

In your recent paper on Google and IPO auctions, you cited as fact the claim that theory predicts that IPO auctions will lead to highly accurate pricing with little or no first day pop. You didn't cite any theoretical work that actually made that prediction, and you chose not to cite my theory paper that directly models IPO auctions and predicts that they will lead to positive average first day changes ("underpricing"), with a potentially high variation in first day initial returns.

My theory paper, which is forthcoming in a top finance journal, was posted to ssrn long before either of your IPO papers were published (and probably before you began your work). You posted your own work to ssrn, so you should have found my papers the same way I found your first paper - through a routine search of ssrn on the subject.

So I've been left to wonder what the standards are for law review articles. Did you skip my theory paper because it wasn't published yet? Regarding the IPO methods used in various countries - even if you don't trust unpublished papers, you could have verified my claims yourself.

If anyone is interested, here's the link to my theory paper on IPO auctions:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=276124

[I also have a paper posted that suggests ways to reform the IPO process in the US. After all, there are many other alternatives besides "Dutch" auctions and the status quo.]

Do law review articles get circulated before publication? Perhaps citing unpublished papers is unusual for law review articles. But for economics and finance, reading only published papers means always being a few years behind.

The Google paper is a working draft. It is in the editing process, and I'm sure that when it comes out of the process published, every non-opinion proposition will be fully footnoted. I may cite to your paper or another paper. I cited to a previous paper of yours in my last published paper, as you may recall. As to norms, I think many law review articles cite to forthcoming pieces.

Ann:

You might have noticed that most legal scholars who claim expertise in “business law and economics” are plainly incompetent. They know virtually nothing about prior work in finance. They can’t read a formal model. They can’t interpret a regression table. Their theoretical insights are devoid of rigor and often unfalsifiable. Their publication outlets are not peer-reviewed. In short, they are pathetic.

The only thing more pathetic is a public diatribe by a fairly successful finance person against a very junior law person who is trying very hard to become better than the norm in the legal academy. If Christine missed your paper, it’s surely not because she wanted to misrepresent economic literature on the subject. Throwing public tantrums because someone failed to cite your paper doesn’t help your cause. It just makes you look petty.

We law/econ juniors very much appreciate comments by finance people. If you want to help us fix the sad state of the business law academy, please give us your most devastating critique – in private.

And trust me, legal scholars will continue to ignore your work simply because they are incapable of understanding it. This has nothing to do with the publication stage, your job title, or the relevance of your work to theirs. You should never take this as an insult. Help us juniors, and you’ll see the results.

Believe it or not, I'm trying to understand what the standards are for law review articles. I've been reading them more lately and have been trying to figure out the norms. Perhaps theory papers typically are not cited - I certainly haven't seen many theoretical or empirical works discussed in law articles. It was only because this particular paper kept talking about how IPO auctions work “in theory” that I thought there was a need to cite particular theory papers.

And yes, I'm too sensitive on this particular subject, but not because I'm so established and powerful that I can afford to trample on everyone else. My career has been damaged by the fact that my results don't fit the popular wisdom. It took me years and years to get my paper published, which is why others working on the subject had plenty of time to find the working paper on ssrn.

If I had gotten the politically correct answer - that auctions work perfectly - the paper would have sailed through the review process at any journal, and pro-auction academics and journalists (the vast majority) would be happy to cite it. But perhaps it still wouldn't get mentioned in law review articles, because they don't review theoretical literature. I don't know. I had hoped to learn more from this discussion, but you're right that I shouldn't have brought up an individual case.

It's largely because, through this blog, I've seen how intelligent and hard-working and reasonable and generally well-informed Ms. Hurt is, that I was surprised by an omission in her paper that did not seem to fit a comment she made in the original post (about law review article standards on citing others). It appeared that I must be missing something, and I'm still not sure what it is. But you're right that I should have only approached the specific details in private. I apologize.

Ann:

as I said, business-law academics are incompetent. They don't cite finance stuff because they can't understand it. It's that simple. Sometimes (very rarely) they cite empirical finance work because they can paraphrase abstracts, but they usually can't read tables, much less understand whether the methodology is sound. They won't cite theory papers no matter how good or insightful or counterintuitive those papers are.

So, here is my insider advice: Just ignore this entire group. They are not your audience. Don’t read law reviews. They mostly publish garbage. Respectable business-law people now publish in finance or bridge peer-reviewed journals (JLEO, ALER, JLS, JLE, JELS).

JFE, by the way, is a great placement for your paper. You should be proud. Though it's a shame that it took almost five years to publish it...