Efficiency in academe: Comparative advantage vs. “publish or perish”

Abstract

A basic tenet of economic theory is that production increases in total whenever factors of production specialize according to their comparative advantages. This very basic law of comparative advantage is not restricted in its application to merely the physical factors of production such as land. Labor, or human capital, is a factor of production, and thus total production is greater if individuals specialize according to their natural, or acquired, talents. Despite the fact that academics propound this law of comparative advantage, very little has been done to implement the law into faculty assignments. Rather, we find that most academic departments at universities require their faculty to not only teach, but also to perform research. This assignment policy occurs even though not all faculty have equal capabilities in both teaching and research. The authors criticize this tendency toward standardization of faculty, using the economic law of comparative advantage as the theoretical justification for their criticism.