IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tow/wpaper/2010-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Allocation of Merit Pay in Academia

Author

Listed:
  • Finn Christensen

    (Department of Economics, Towson University)

  • James Manley

    (Department of Economics, Towson University)

  • Louise Laurence

    (Department of Economics, Towson University)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Finn Christensen & James Manley & Louise Laurence, 2010. "The Allocation of Merit Pay in Academia," Working Papers 2010-13, Towson University, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:tow:wpaper:2010-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://webapps.towson.edu/cbe/economics/workingpapers/2010-13.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael S. McPherson & Morton Owen Schapiro, 1999. "Tenure Issues in Higher Education," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 85-98, Winter.
    2. French, Stephen & Kubo, Katsuyuki & Marsden, David, 2001. "Does performance pay de-motivate, and does it matter?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3637, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    4. Gerald Marschke & Pascal Courty, 2000. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Performance Incentives," Discussion Papers 00-12, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    5. Thomas S. Dee & Benjamin J. Keys, 2004. "Does merit pay reward good teachers? Evidence from a randomized experiment," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 471-488.
    6. Belfield, Clive R. & Heywood, John S., 2008. "Performance pay for teachers: Determinants and consequences," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 243-252, June.
    7. McKelvey, Richard D., 1976. "Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 472-482, June.
    8. Antony Dnes & Nuno Garoupa, 2005. "Academic Tenure, Posttenure Effort, and Contractual Damages," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(4), pages 831-839, October.
    9. Simon Burgess & Marisa Ratto, 2003. "The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/071, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    10. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2003. "Dynamics of Performance-Measurement Systems," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(2), pages 268-284, Summer.
    11. Rob Euwals & Melanie Ward, 2005. "What matters most: teaching or research? Empirical evidence on the remuneration of British academics," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(14), pages 1655-1672.
    12. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    13. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
    14. Simon Burgess & Marisa Ratto, 2003. "The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(2), pages 285-300, Summer.
    15. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    16. Nick Adnett, 2003. "Commentary. Reforming teachers' pay: incentive payments, collegiate ethos and UK policy," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 27(1), pages 145-157, January.
    17. Victor Lavy, 2002. "Evaluating the Effect of Teachers' Group Performance Incentives on Pupil Achievement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1286-1317, December.
    18. Michael J. Podgursky & Matthew G. Springer, 2007. "Teacher performance pay: A review," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 909-950.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The strange dynamics of faculty merit pay
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-08-20 19:28:00

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Finn Christensen & James Manley & Louise Laurence, 2011. "The Allocation of Merit Pay in Academia: A Case Study," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(2), pages 1548-1562.
    2. Atkinson, Adele & Burgess, Simon & Croxson, Bronwyn & Gregg, Paul & Propper, Carol & Slater, Helen & Wilson, Deborah, 2009. "Evaluating the impact of performance-related pay for teachers in England," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 251-261, June.
    3. Emiliana Vegas & Ilana Umansky, 2005. "Improving Teaching and Learning through Effective Incentives : What Can We Learn from Education Reforms in Latin America?," World Bank Publications - Reports 8694, The World Bank Group.
    4. Bourdon, Jean & Frölich, Markus & Michaelowa, Katharina, 2007. "Teacher Shortages, Teacher Contracts and their Impact on Education in Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 2844, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Balch, Ryan & Springer, Matthew G., 2015. "Performance pay, test scores, and student learning objectives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 114-125.
    6. Hanushek, Eric A., 2011. "The economic value of higher teacher quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 466-479, June.
    7. Nick Manning & Zahid Hasnain & Jan Henryk Pierskalla, 2012. "Public Sector Human Resource Practices to Drive Performance," World Bank Publications - Reports 25489, The World Bank Group.
    8. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Gerald Marschke, 2010. "Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 183-208.
    9. Hasnain, Zahid & Manning, Nick & Pierskalla Henryk, 2012. "Performance-related pay in the public sector : a review of theory and evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6043, The World Bank.
    10. Eric A. Hanushek, 2008. "Incentives for Efficiency and Equity in the School System," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(s1), pages 5-27, May.
    11. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141, October.
    12. Jones, Michael D., 2013. "Teacher behavior under performance pay incentives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 148-164.
    13. Woessmann, Ludger, 2011. "Cross-country evidence on teacher performance pay," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 404-418, June.
    14. Pierre Koning & C.J. Heinrich, 2009. "Cream-skimming, parking and other intended and unintended effects of performance-based contracting in social welfare services," CPB Discussion Paper 134, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Jana Vyrastekova & Sander Onderstal & Pierre Koning, 2012. "Self-selection and the power of incentive schemes: an experimental study," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(32), pages 4211-4219, November.
    16. Johnston, Andrew C., 2021. "Preferences, Selection, and the Structure of Teacher Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 14831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Konstantinos Pouliakas, 2010. "Pay Enough, Don't Pay Too Much or Don't Pay at All? The Impact of Bonus Intensity on Job Satisfaction," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 597-626, November.
    18. Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi & Teal, Francis, 2007. "Does performance related pay for teachers improve student performance? Some evidence from India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 473-486, August.
    19. Kuhn, Michael & Siciliani, Luigi, 2013. "Manipulation and auditing of public sector contracts," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 251-267.
    20. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2012. "Rewarding carrots and crippling sticks: Eliciting employee preferences for the optimal incentive design," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1247-1265.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tow:wpaper:2010-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Juergen Jung (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detowus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.