Is There an Insider Advantage in Getting Tenure?

Abstract

At most universities there are two types of tenured economists—those who began work at the school shortly after leaving graduate school (and were later promoted), and experienced economists who were hired with tenure. Conventional wisdom in academic circles suggests that it is easier to get tenure as an insider than it is to attract an offer as an outsider. That is, schools hold potential external senior hires to tougher standards then they do their own junior professors. In this paper, I take a first step toward showing that, at least for academic economists, there is an insider advantage. I analyze the research records of economists with ten years experience and compare the productivity of those who changed employers recently (suggesting they were hired with tenure) to those who did not (suggesting internal promotion.) I show that the productivity of “outsiders” is higher than the productivity of “insiders” at all but the top-ten economics institutions in the world. The economic significance of the estimates is substantial, but the statistical precision suggests that more work is required to draw strong conclusions. Also, I focus on average productivity of all available insiders and outsiders, whereas an ideal dataset would allow a direct comparison of marginal insiders and outsiders, (that is, those who barely met the standard). THE MARKET AND PRE-MARKET FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS IN ECONOMICS