Why tenure?

Bruce Cater, Byron Lew and Marcus Pivato

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Academic research is a public good whose production is supported by the tuition-paying students that a faculty's research accomplishments attract. A professor's spot contribution to the university's revenues thus depends not on her spot research production, but rather on her cumulative research record. We show that a profit-maximizing university will apply a `high' minimum retention standard to the production of a junior professor who has no record of past research, but a `zero' retention standard to the spot production of a more senior professor whose background includes accomplishments sufficient to have cleared the `high' probationary hurdle.

Keywords: academic tenure; labour contract; up-or-out (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-01-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-lab and nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:14823

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