This is a preprint before peer-review. Abalkina, A., Libman, A. The real costs of plagiarism: Russian governors, plagiarized PhD theses, and infrastructure in Russian regions. Scientometrics (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03716-x The Real Costs of Plagiarism: Russian Governors, Plagiarized PhD Theses, and Infrastructure in Russian Regions Anna Abalkina Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich abalkina@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0003-1469-4907 Alexander Libman Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development of the National Research University Higher School of Economics ORCID: 0000-0001-8504-3007 Abstract: This paper investigates whether politicians who have plagiarized their PhD dissertations perform worse in running their polities than those who have not committed plagiarism. We look at the performance of Russian regional governors and document that a substantial portion of them have plagiarized PhD theses. The regions run by these governors are characterized by lower growth rates of housing construction and the spread of broadband Internet. We argue that in the Russian context, a plagiarized PhD thesis is likely to indicate that governors both are inclined to dishonest behavior and possess poor managerial capabilities, which should have a particularly negative effect on the performance of their regions. Keywords: plagiarism, dissertations, governors, infrastructure, incompetence, dishonesty, PhD theses