Two scholars at a research institution in Washington have accused Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, of plagiarizing a management textbook by two professors at the University of Pittsburgh in a dissertation for which he received an economics degree, The Washington Times reported on Saturday. According to the scholars, Mr. Putin copied substantial portions, including tables and diagrams, from a 1978 book, Strategic Planning and Policy, by William R. King, now a professor of business administration at Pitt, and David I. Cleland, now an emeritus professor of industrial engineering.

The book, now out of print in English, was available in a Russian translation for Mr. Putin, who cited it in a bibliography but did not make clear that he had lifted whole pages verbatim, according to the two scholars, Clifford G. Gaddy and Igor Danchenko, who work at the Brookings Institution.

At the time Mr. Putin is said to have completed the dissertation for a degree at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, in the mid-to-late 1990s, plagiarism, bribery, and other forms of academic corruption were common in Russian academe (The Chronicle, April 30, 1999, and September 24, 1999). The Times does not mention whether it sought a comment from Mr. Putin on the plagiarism charges.