William Dickens wrote:
>
> Obviously the supply side of the academic labor market values this and is willing to
>forgo some money compensation to get it. Evidently the cost of producing this amenity
>for academic employers is generally less than the value to the employees so there are
>very few schools that don't promise tenure. You might ask why people value tenure so
>much or why it is cheap for schools to provide it, but again I don't think that is
>too surprising. Academics value their freedom and tenure guarantees a reasonable
>minimum income if you decide to think unconventional thoughts for a while or pursue a
>high risk long term project.
I have a lot of doubts about this functionalist account of tenure. We
generally see that civil servants have a lot of job security, and their
jobs don't have a lot of creativity associated with them. Does the
near-impossibility of firing high school teachers have anything to do
with their creative freedom?
While the factors you cite may have some marginal importance, I think
the main reason is that people who run non-profits usually want to avoid
rocking the boat rather than excel. If they tried to improve faculty
incentives, they would suffer a lot of headaches without getting a big
raise. Government subsidies and private charity give universities the
cushion they need to avoid being put out of competition by
performance-oriented for-profits.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
