The Allocation of Merit Pay in Academia

Finn Christensen, James Manley and Louise Laurence ()
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Louise Laurence: Department of Economics, Towson University

No 2010-13, Working Papers from Towson University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates whether the widespread awarding of faculty merit pay at a large public university accurately reflects productivity. We show that pairwise voting on a quality standard by a committee can in theory be consistent with observed allocation patterns. However, the data indicate only nominal adherence to a quality standard. Departments with more severe compression issues are more likely to award merit pay as a countermeasure and some departments appear to be motivated by nonpecuniary incentives. Much of the variance in merit pay allocation remains unexplained. These results suggest reform is needed to improve transparency in the merit system.

JEL-codes: D7 I20 J33 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2010-07, Revised 2010-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-sog
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http://webapps.towson.edu/cbe/economics/workingpapers/2010-13.pdf First version, 2010 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tow:wpaper:2010-13

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