Tenure-Track Contract Helps Self-Selection
Economics Bulletin, Volume 35, Issue 4, pages 2482-2486
6 Pages Posted: 21 Mar 2015 Last revised: 7 Dec 2016
Date Written: September 2, 2015
Abstract
Tenure-track contract is criticized for curbing the incentives for spending effort after obtaining the tenured status. Yet, the most productive faculty seems to work on a tenure contract, and schools who aim to employ the best faculty seem to prefer to offer tenure-track contracts to their new hires. I argue that tenure-track contracts are by construction more attractive to more able freshly minted PhDs, and therefore the observed sorting is rationalizable.
Keywords: tenure, academia, job market, self-selection
JEL Classification: I23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation