Tenure Issues in Higher Education

McPherson, Michael S.; Schapiro, Morton Owen

doi:10.1257/jep.13.1.85

Cited by 109 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…As we argue below, the ability of academia to precommit not to interfere with scientists is intimately connected to its non-pro…t nature. In practice, this function is further reinforced by the tenure system; see, e.g., McPherson and Schapiro (1999). 3 Howitt (2003) stresses that "...the kind of eccentricity that leads one down the path (of individual creativity) is rarely tolerated in private corporations, whose culture in this respect is a collective one that rewards employees for subordinating their private goals to that of the organization".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Freedom, Private-Sector Focus, and the Process of Innovation

2005

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We develop a model that clarifies the respective advantages and disadvantages of academic and private-sector research. Our model assumes full protection of intellectual property rights at all stages of the development process, and hence does not rely on lack of appropriability or spillovers to generate a rationale for academic research. Instead, we focus on control-rights considerations, and argue that the fundamental tradeoff between academia and the private sector is one of creative control versus focus. By serving as a precommitment mechanism that allows scientists to freely pursue their own interests, academia can be indispensable for early-stage research. At the same time, the private sector's ability to direct scientists towards higher-payoff activities makes it more attractive for later-stage research.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Freedom, Private-Sector Focus, and the Process of Innovation

2005

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“…A variety of additional justifications for tenure have been proposed (for a discussion in this journal, see McPherson and Shapiro 1999). For example, the carrot of tenure can incentivize effort pre-tenure, allow for lower salaries, induce more selective hiring, or attract risk-averse but talented individuals to academia.…”

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confidence: 99%

Do Economists Swing for the Fences after Tenure?

Brogaard

Engelberg

Wesep

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

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Using a sample of all academics who pass through top 50 economics and finance departments from 1996 through 2014, we study whether the granting of tenure leads faculty to pursue riskier ideas. We use the extreme tails of ex-post citations as our measure of risk and find that both the number of publications and the portion consisting of “home runs” peak at tenure and fall steadily for a decade thereafter. Similar patterns hold for faculty at elite (top 10) institutions and for faculty who take differing time to tenure. We find the opposite pattern among poorly cited publications: their numbers rise post-tenure.

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“…In recent years, a number of economists have considered the economic rational for tenure (McPherson and Winston, 1993;and McPherson and Schapiro, 1999), often coaching their arguments in terms of internal labor markets. We apply the same line of reasoning here to argue against weakening tenure with summative post-tenure review.…”

Section: An Internal Labor Market Argument Against Summative Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%