As Canada's 2025 federal election approached, a rumor began to spread that the country's prime minister and candidate for the Liberal Party, Mark Carney, an economist and former central banker, had plagiarized parts of his 1995 economics thesis at Oxford University.
For example, his opponent in the election, Conservative Party candidate Pierre
As of this writing, the post had received more than 590,000 views and 13,000 likes. Further, readers searched the Snopes website inquiring about the veracity of the claim.
The claim stemmed from a report by Canadian outlet The National Post, a right-of-center newspaper with high credibility, according to Media Bias Fact Check. On March 28, 2025, The National Post published an article by Catherine Lévesque asserting that a review of Carney's doctorate thesis revealed quotes that were similar to others found in works that preceded it without proper attribution.
Carney obtained his economics doctorate from Oxford University in England in 1995, with a thesis titled, "The Dynamic Advantage of Competition." Physical copies of the thesis, which has not been digitized, exist in two libraries in Oxford: the library of Nuffield College, where Carney obtained his doctorate, and the Weston Library.
However, Lévesque obtained a scan of the thesis, which she shared with Snopes.
Snopes reached out for comment from Carney via his party and await a response.
Problematic quotes
At the bottom of the article, Lévesque compiled 10 quotes that raised plagiarism concerns, along with the passages in the works from which Carney seems to have pulled them:
"Domestic profitability is not a good indication of true international competitive advantage for three important reasons." — Michael E. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, 1990, p. 797. "There are three reasons why domestic profitability is not a good indicator of true international competitive advantage." — Mark Carney's thesis, 1995, p. 206.
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"First, government intervention can impede international competition and artificially support domestic profits." — Porter, 1990, p. 797. "First, government intervention can impede international competition and artificially support domestic profits." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 206.
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"Second, in an industry or economy where many firms are following harvesting strategies, firms may maintain profitability though they are losing competitiveness. Finally, differences in accounting standards in preparing financial statements make cross-national comparisons in profitability problematic, as does the lack of systematic data in many countries." — Porter, 1990, p. 797. "Second, in an industry or an economy where many firms are following harvesting strategies, firms may maintain profitability even though they are losing competitiveness. Third, differences in accounting standards and the lack of systematic data prevent international comparisons." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 206.
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"Social norms and values affect the nature of home demand…" — Porter, 1990, p. 129. "Second, social norms and values affect the nature of home demand." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 90.
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"Related industries are those where firms can share activities in the value chain across industries (for example, distribution channels, technology development) or transfer proprietary skills from one industry to another." — Porter, 1990, p. 782. "The former are industries which share activities in the value chain across industries (e.g., distribution channels or technology development) or transfer proprietary skills between them." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 84.
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If stockholders are imperfectly informed, temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to become undervalued, increasing the likelihood of a takeover at an unfavorable price… " — Jeremy Stein, "Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia," Journal of Political Economy, 1988, p. 61. "This argument assumes that shareholders are imperfectly informed and that temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to be undervalued increasing the probability of a takeover at an unfavourable price." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 190.
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Maximizing the present value of their income will be equivalent to maximizing the following utility at each time t " — Jeremy C. Stein, Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1989, p. 658. "Maximising the present value of their income will be the same as maximising the following utility function at each time t" — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 224.
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Earnings more than one period into the future can be ignored, as current decisions have no effect on such earnings. " — Stein, 1989, p. 659. "Our simple characterisation of the effects of harvesting means that earnings more than one period in the future can be ignored since current decisions have no effect on these earnings." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 224.
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In a steady state signal-jamming equilibrium, managers will borrow a constant amount each period from the next period's earnings, and the market will correctly anticipate this borrowing. " — Stein, 1989, p. 659. "In the steady state equilibrium, the managers will borrow a constant amount each period, and the market will correctly anticipate this borrowing." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 225.
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The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a finite number of states. " — H.S. Shin, "News Management and the Value of Firms," The RAND Journal of Economics, 1994, p. 60. "The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a continuous number of states." — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 211.
Indeed, a review of Carney's thesis revealed that these quotes did appear in it. It also showed that Carney had cited each of the authors and works he apparently copied in his bibliography.
A review of Porter's 1990 book "The Competitive Advantage of Nations," Stein's two articles "Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia" and "Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior," and Shin's article "News Management and the Value of Firms" confirmed each of the cited quotes.
While Carney made extensive use of footnotes with the author's name, date of publication and exact page, none of these passages appeared in quotes, nor did any attribution appear for them directly.
Still, a few of these passages appear surrounded by references to their appropriate authors on the same page. For example, the passage on Page 190 of Carney's thesis, which allegedly copies Stein's 1988 article, reads (emphasis ours):
This argument assumes that shareholders are imperfectly informed and that temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to be undervalued increasing the probability of a takeover at an unfavourable price. Stein (1988) builds a model in which managers engage in myopic signalling in order to reduce the possibility of shareholders selling the firm to a raider.
Shin's article, however, is cited nowhere on the page where the passage that closely resembles his original sentences appears (Page 211).
Plagiarism at Oxford University
The university website states that plagiarism "is defined as the copying or paraphrasing of other people's work or ideas into your own work without full acknowledgment." The school's rules indicate that both citing a passage verbatim or paraphrasing it without full acknowledgment constitute plagiarism. A separate page addresses unintentional plagiarism, warning students that while this may sometimes happen, ignorance does not constitute a strong defense, and that students need to insure that their work is free of lifted, unattributed passages.
However, it is unclear how the rules on plagiarism at Oxford University have evolved since 1995, if at all. We have contacted the university to inquire.
According to The National Post, Carney's thesis director, Margaret Meyer, defended him.
"I believe you are mischaracterizing this work. As an academic of nearly 40 years, I see no evidence of plagiarism in the thesis you cited nor any unusual academic practices," Meyer told The National Post in a statement. "Mark's thesis was evaluated and approved by a faculty committee that saw his work for what it is: an impressive and thoroughly researched analysis that set him apart from his peers."
We wrote to Meyer asking if she would add anything else to the story. As previously mentioned, we also have contacted the Liberal Party of Canada seeking a reaction from Carney about these allegations. We will update the story should they respond.