Publish or perish: Up-or-out rules and research performance of universities

Many organizations worldwide have adopted up-or-out rules, but little causal evidence is provided on their effectiveness. Using the introduction of the up-or-out rules in China Shenzhen University in 2016, we provide the first causal evidence of the impact of the rules on organizational performance using the synthetic control method. We find that up-or-out rules significantly boosted the quantity and quality of publications at Shenzhen University relative to the counterfactuals. Specifically, the WOS, SCI, SSCI, journal impact factor (JIF) weighted WOS, JIF weighted SCI, and JIF weighted SSCI publications had an annual average increase of 1695, 1409, 215, 9278, 9145, and 812, which implied a 3.5-fold, 4.1-fold, 10.9-fold, 9.3-fold, 9.2-fold, and 19.7-fold increase, respectively, relative to the average output per year before the reform (2006–2015). The result remains robust after a series of tests. The mechanism analysis revealed that the increase was driven by the up-or-out rules' ability to effectively motivate both newcomers and incumbents to enhance their publication efforts. Further analysis indicates that the rise in English publications did not come at the expense of Chinese publications or the quality of teaching.