nep-sog New Economics Papers
on Sociology of Economics
Issue of 2016‒11‒27
one paper chosen by
Jonas Holmström
Axventure AB

  1. How Much Is That Star in the Window? Professorial Salaries and Research Performance in UK Universities By De Fraja, Gianni; Facchini, Giovanni; Gathergood, John

  1. By: De Fraja, Gianni; Facchini, Giovanni; Gathergood, John
    Abstract: We study the relationship between academic salaries and research performance. To this end, we use individual level data on the salary of all UK university professors, matched to results on the performance of academic departments from the 2014 government evaluation of research. The UK higher education sector is particularly interesting because professorial salaries are unregulated and the outcome of the official research evaluation of universities is one of their key financial and academic concerns. We first present a simple model of university pay determination, which shows that pay level and pay inequality in a department are positively related to performance. Our empirical results confirm these theoretical predictions; we also find that the pay-performance relationship is weaker for the more established and better paying universities. Our findings are also consistent with the idea that higher salaries have been used by departments to recruit academics more likely to improve their performance.
    Keywords: Higher education competition; Research Excellence Framework; Research funding; Salary inequality; University sector
    JEL: D47 H42 I28 L30
    Date: 2016–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11638&r=sog

This nep-sog issue is ©2016 by Jonas Holmström. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.