Academic Salaries Research Articles

A Loyalty Tax? National Measures of Academic Salary Compression

This paper presents measures of faculty salary compression for 1993 and 1999 based on national, rather than institutional-level, data. Using a recently developed technique and two national faculty surveys, actual junior to senior salary ratios are derived as well as predicted salary ratios that represent what the salary ratios would be if junior and senior faculty were similarly compensated for their productive traits. The analysis, which considers three alternative definitions of junior faculty and stratifies results by institutional type, produces an overall finding of no salary compression. A limited number of disciplines, including business and economics, however, do exhibit signs of salary compression.

Academic Salaries in the UK and US

We examine the wages of graduates inside and outside of academe in both the UK and US. We find that in both the UK and the US an average graduate working in the HE sector would earn less over his or her lifetime than graduates working in non-academic sectors. The largest disparity occurs throughout the earlier and middle career period and so if people discount their future earnings, the difference will be even greater than these figures suggest. Academics in the UK earn less than academics in the US at all ages. This difference cannot be explained by differences in observable characteristics such as age, gender or ethnicity. This leads us to conclude that the differences in UK and US academic wages are unlikely to be due to differences in the academics themselves, but rather to differences in labour markets generally and in systems of higher education between the two countries, which suggests that there is a strong pay incentive for academics to migrate from the UK to the US.

The Labor Market for New Ph.D. Economists: Panel Discussion

Alan J. Auerbach:1 John J. Siegfried and Wendy A. Stock (2004) have provided us with a wealth of information about the newest products of U.S. Ph.D. programs. Among the notable facts are the continuing decline in the share of U.S. natives among these new graduates, their continued success at landing academic and other professional jobs, and their high level of professional fulfillment, in terms of both job satisfaction and outcomes measuring up to expectations. There are also a variety of intriguing results. For example, (from their table 5) students completing the top Ph.D. programs were younger, less likely to be married, and more likely to be foreign than those in the overall sample. Perhaps most disturbing, (from their table 6) median starting full-time academic salaries were lowest in public economics, a result that cannot be accounted for in salary regressions with other covariates. This clearly is an inversion of the appropriate ranking. In my comments, I will focus on two selected aspects of Ph.D. programs and the Ph.D. job market.

Australian Academics and Prospective Academics

In many respects, adjustment to the new commercial environment has been painful and damaging to the academic profession in Australia. The profession is now more fragmented and has lost political influence and standing. Academic salaries have failed to keep pace with professional salaries and many academics are highly critical of changes in government higher education policy, reduced government financial support for universities and structural and management changes within their institutions. Many feel a strong sense of frustration, disillusionment and anger. However, not all adjustments have been negative. Australian academics today are better-qualified, work harder and are more productive in research than they were in the 1970s. They continue to be deeply interested in key academic roles and many still find their jobs satisfying. Many have made successful transitions to involvement in research links with industry and other entrepreneurial activities, without jeopardising their academic integrity. But the views of PhD students give cause for concern, especially dissatisfaction about course experience, uncertainty about future careers and highly negative views of both universities and academic employment...

Candidate for Trustee-at-Large

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article INFORMATION ON THE CANDIDATESFull AccessCandidate for Trustee-at-LargeRenée L. Binder, M.D., Renée L. BinderSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., Distinguished Fellow (Member Since 1975)Published Online:5 Dec 2003https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.38.23.0034About the CandidateRenée L. Binder, M.D.Distinguished Fellow (Member Since 1975)•. Professor, Department of Psychiatry, and Director of Psychiatry and Law Program, University of California, San Francisco, 1999-•. APA Assembly: Area 6 Representative, 2002- ; Deputy Representative, 2000-02•. Chair, APA Commission/Committee on Judicial Action, 2000-•. Chair, APA Council on Psychiatry and Law, 1997-2000•. ABPN: Senior Examiner, 1999- ; Forensic Psychiatry Subspecialty Steering Committee, 2001-•. President, American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 1997-98Candidates’ ViewsIt would be a great honor for me to be able to serve the members of APA as trustee-at-large. APA is the premiere organization for psychiatrists. I have been a member since 1975 and have appreciated how much APA has given to me in terms of professional identity and professional development and as a forum for advocacy for my patients. I have been president of my district branch, president of my state association, Area 6 representative and deputy representative in the Assembly, and chair of three components: Committee on Confidentiality, Council on Psychiatry and Law, and Committee on Judicial Action.I have learned that organized psychiatry can be incredibly effective. When I was president of my district branch, I heard many concerns about the difficulties that our members had in terms of working with the regional Medicare office. I helped organize a meeting with key Medicare personnel, and this led to increased communication and facilitation of billing and the utilization review process. The district branch, representing more than 1,300 psychiatrists, was able to do more than any individual psychiatrist could do.From June to mid-December, I have been on a professional development leave and am working in the U.S. Senate as a health policy fellow. I have learned to appreciate how members of Congress and their staff want to hear from their constituents and professional organizations about the impact of proposed legislation. APA is very well respected and has done an excellent job of advocating for improvements in mental health services. As a member of the Board of Trustees, I will work to continue to support the efforts of APA in advocacy and in public affairs, especially in educating the public about the advances in psychiatry and treatments for mental disorders. I also will work to communicate the successes of our organization to our members. This will help with retention of our members who are unsure about what APA is doing for them.One of the important tasks of APA is to encourage the involvement of our young psychiatrists in organized psychiatry. During my tenure as president of the California Psychiatric Association, I helped organize a conference that was specifically geared to residents and early career psychiatrists. The focus was on improving skills in advocacy and working with the media. We had legislators, lobbyists, and media representatives give presentations. We also were able to offer scholarships to support the attendance of residents and early career psychiatrists. The conference was extremely successful, and our young psychiatrists learned how they could work with organized psychiatry to impact legislation and the public’s perception of psychiatry. This is the type of project that we need to support in other state associations and district branches and nationally.I believe that the job of the trustee-at-large is to represent all of our members to the Board of Trustees and ensure that all concerns are heard and addressed by the Board of Trustees. The job includes advocating for the Assembly, the components, women, minorities, underrepresented groups, international medical graduates, allied organizations, and our younger members. If elected, I will devote my efforts toward ensuring that all of these voices will be heard by the Board of Trustees.Primary Loci of Work and Sources of IncomeWork: 100%—Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California, San FranciscoIncome: 100%—University of California academic salary (includes faculty practice with outpatients, inpatients, and forensic consultations) ISSUES NewArchived

Optimal incentives for income-generation in universities: the rule of thumb for the Compton tax

In this paper we propose a novel framework to model one of the key links between universities and industry—the undertaking of applied research. We postulate that a basic objective of universities is to undertake fundamental research and that they receive public funding to do so. Nevertheless, faced with tight budget constraints, universities may have incentives to allow their staff to devote some of their time to income-generating activities such as applied research or consultancy. This opens up two channels by which universities can ease their budget constraint: (i) by allowing academics to supplement their income, universities may be able to hold down academic salaries; (ii) universities can effectively ‘tax’ the income that academics raise through applied research or consultancy—for example, through the imposition of ‘overhead charges’. By easing their budget constraint, universities may be able to take on sufficient extra staff to more than offset the time that existing staff are spending on non-fundamental research and thus increase the amount of fundamental research that they can achieve with a given public budget. We develop a model of this link between universities and firms and use it to determine the optimal ‘tax’ that universities should impose on applied-research income. The Compton tax, used at MIT in the 1930s, is an early example of the use of this instrument.

Studying Ourselves: The Academic Labor Market

This paper addresses three academic labor market issues; the declining salaries of faculty employed at public colleges and universities relative to their private institution counterparts, the growing dispersion of average faculty salaries across academic institutions within both the public and private sectors, and the impacts of the growing importance and costs of science on the academic labor market and universities. The decline in the salaries of faculty in public institutions relative to their private sector counterparts is attributed primarily to private institutions' tuition levels rising by more in real terms than public institutions' tuition levels. The growing dispersion in average faculty salaries across institutions within each sector is attributed primarily to the growing disperion of endowmentper student levels across private institutions and the growing dispersion of state appropriations per student across public institutions. Finally, controlling for other factors, those universities whose real research expenditures per faculty from institutional funds are growing the most experience the greatest increase in their student/faculty ratio, other variables held constant.

Hidden success of German university reform

Hidden success of German university reform

Academic salaries vary widely in Europe

Academic salaries vary widely in Europe

Checking the books: What are universities for?

One of the first things I learnt when I took my first university job was that academics are even worse whingers than farmers. Gather two or three together and within minutes conversation will turn to what's wrong with students, colleagues, administrators, editors, publishers, politicians, research councils, cleaners, tutorial assistants and on and on. After thirty years I can whinge with the best of them, but I do believe that the grounds of complaint have changed. For the first time in my academic career, talk of a crisis in the university system doesn't seem overblown. The underlying problem for British universities is obviously underinvestment. The effect of the demand by successive governments that universities teach more people without being resourced accordingly has been to reduce funding per student by 50 per cent. This means not just larger class sizes (and marking loads), but a squeeze on all teaching resources -- classrooms, library books and desks, secretarial support, computer access and so on. In my own department, which offers film and media studies with a strong practical component, the SHEFC (Scottish Higher Education Funding Council) funding formula means we make a financial loss on each student taken. The issue here isn't just that universities have had to continue with existing teaching practices under conditions that make them problematic -- when I started teaching, the ideal seminar group was 8-9 students; now it is rarely less than 14-15; colleagues elsewhere have groups of 20-plus. I can no longer assume that all students will be able to read a particular book in the library when they need to. We've also had to change what we do because of the financial circumstances. I'll come back to the effects of this on teaching methods and standards later. For the moment I want to note the effects of the resource squeeze on the context in which teaching takes place. All universities I know are now run under systems of crisis management. Each year the word comes down that cost savings must be found, productivity increased. The good head of department is now the person best able to cast an accountant's eye over the figures, to massage the details of income and expenditure, to find funds by reorganising the balance sheet. Even more problematically, because universities' state funding depends on an annual grant which is itself unpredictable (the funding formula itself changes year by year) strategic planning is impossible. Policy-making is necessarily short-term: how to prop up failing departments, how to respond to immediate student demands, how to ensure a good RAE score. One consequence is the pressure felt at all levels to raise funding by different means, to ease one's institution's dependence on the state by becoming dependent instead on research income, the sale of distance learning packets, short-term training courses, corporate sponsors, rich alumni. So far this academic year I've spent far more time at meetings with potential commercial partners than I have at academic conferences. Another consequence is the loss of any day-to-day sense of academic freedom. The problem here is not increasing teaching loads as such, but the sense that they are only manageable (and university teaching is now an occupation with high stress levels) through the tight control of one's time -- by the ever more complicated teaching, examining and marking process, by the different and often contradictory demands for results from bureaucrats at all levels, departmental, faculty, university, SHEFC. This is the local experience of audit culture which I discuss below, and it is this, rather than salary levels by themselves, which has fed into one of the more obvious components of the present university crisis: the problem of recruiting and retaining staff. Academic salaries have always been low compared to those in other professions; most academics were quite happy to trade this off against working conditions which left them free to pursue their own interests in their own time. …

Plug for brain drain?

The recent spending review by the UK government has announced the allocation of ∼£370 million over the next three years to universities for the recruitment and retention of top class academics. In consultation with academic institutions, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will distribute teaching and research grants on receipt of clear strategies that target issues such as staff recruitment, retention, development and commitment. Because the content of strategies is left to the discretion of each institution, it is anticipated that proposals will include the use of funds to increase staff pay, and with it the possibility of bridging the UK–US academic salary gap. The allocation of funds will be based on the current level of HEFCE funding to each university; the top five beneficiaries are listed in Box 1. The current HEFCE guidelines, details of which can be found on the HEFCE website (http://www.hefce.ac.uk), invite institutions to put forward their own objectives and targets by the June 2001 deadline. DC. Tabled 1 Higher Education instituions Allocation (£) I 2001–2004 Open University 12 663 000 University College Londo 9956 000 University of Oxford 9922 000 University of Cambridge 9774 000 Imperial College London 8643 000 Open table in a new tab Tabled 1 Higher Education instituions Allocation (£) I 2001–2004 Open University 12 663 000 University College Londo 9956 000 University of Oxford 9922 000 University of Cambridge 9774 000 Imperial College London 8643 000 Open table in a new tab

Why academic divisions of hematology/oncology are in trouble and some suggestions for resolution.

Academic divisions of hematology/oncology seem to have difficulty recruiting and retaining excellent productive clinicians. A major reason for this is that salaries do not compete with the private sector for similar work. We reviewed divisional finances productivity, and experiences from faculty members leaving. The academic salaries are approximately one third of practice because the chemotherapy concession has been given to the academic hospital. In addition, there may be substantial problems in under-billing, lack of attention to detail in billing, and poor collection practices. Academic practice still has much to offer, including opportunities for research and multidisciplinary team management, although the differences may narrow over the coming years. Attention to detail in the billing, collection for work performed, and increasing academic salaries to levels nearer to private practice are necessary components of the solution to recruit and retain quality productive clinicians.

UK Boosts Pay, Joins ESO, in Science Spending Spree

The UK government has announced substantial new money for higher education, academic salaries, and research. Over the next three years, the science budget will increase by 26% from £1.7 billion (about $2.5 billion) to £2.15 billion, while education will get an 18% increase to £6.4 billion. The majority of the new science funding will be spent on either life sciences or interdisciplinary programs. However, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) has done particularly well compared to the last spending review three years ago, when it was the only research council that received no funding increase above inflation. Its budget will go up 20% from £194 million to £232 million by 2004. “This new funding will ensure our physicists and astronomers remain at the forefront of international research,” says Ian Halliday, PPARC CEO.Thanks to lobbying by astronomers, £10 million of the new PPARC money will go to joining the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile (see Physics Today, September 2000, page 55). “This is excellent news for UK science and lays the foundation for cutting-edge research over the next 10 years,” says Mike Edmunds, chairman of the Astronomy Vision Panel, PPARC’s long-term planning committee for astronomy. “British astronomers will be delighted by the government’s rapid and positive response to their case.”The money will buy UK astronomers 20% of the time on the Very Large Telescope as well as time on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array being built in Chile. Despite the good news, cuts of more than £5 million a year in the UK’s astronomy program will have to be made over the next 10 years to afford the £70 million joining fee that comes on top of the £12 million annual membership dues. Recommendations for the cuts will be made public in February.PPARC also won a £26 million grant for two projects from the Department of Trade and Industry’s “e-science” program. That money will fund research into the creation of Astro-grid, a virtual observatory combining astronomical data from many space- and ground-based observatories, and DataGrid, a network system for analyzing data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Stipends for physics graduate students will go up 23% by 2004 to £9000. “We have got to send a clear signal to young people that research should no longer be seen as a Cinderella career,” said a spokesperson for the government’s Office of Science and Technology.The 10% increase above inflation in the higher education budget has three main goals: to modernize university facilities, expand student numbers by at least 8%, and increase the pay of academics. Despite the funding boost to education, the UK still spends less as a proportion of its gross national product than most members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. To bring higher education up to the OECD average would cost an additional £7.5 billion per year.Roughly one third of the new education cash (£330 million) is earmarked for salaries. The money is in addition to any nationwide pay increase negotiated with trade union leaders in the next few months. Universities have been told they can use the money for recruiting new staff or to break the national payscale and increase existing salaries at their institutions. “Universities and colleges have to compete internationally to recruit the best staff,” says Brian Fender, CEO of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which distributes public money to universities and colleges. “This funding settlement is a major step in helping them do that.”Currently an English literature professor earns the same salary as a physics professor anywhere in the country, but the pay raises are expected to change that. “There is now an acknowledgment amongst the government and some university institutions that it is no longer relevant to have a nationwide payscale,” says Peter Cotgreave from Save British Science, a UK pressure group. “It should reflect national priorities.” Science and technology are among those priorities, and low pay is widely believed to be the main reason for a UK academic “brain drain” both to industry and abroad.© 2001 American Institute of Physics.

Salary Determinants of Entry Level Academic Economists and the Characteristics of Those Hired on the Tenure Track

This paper examines the characteristics of entry level academic economists and investigates the determinants of market salaries. Contrary to what might be expected, we find that nominal salaries are not systematically adjusted to reflect observable differences in the cost of living. Our findings reveal that being hired on the tenure track significantly influence academic salaries regardless of departmental ranking. After analyzing the factors that influence salaries, we analyze the impact that observable characteristics have on the probability of being hired into tenure track positions. Completing a Ph.D. degree, being hired at a public university, and receiving a degree from a highly ranked department were found to be significant characteristics of those hired into tenure track positions.

Long odds

Long odds

The association of gender with academic accountant salaries

Abstract This study investigates whether observed salary differences of accounting academics persist after controlling for personal differences in education, past academic employment, and professional achievement. We model salary as a function of gender, years worked, achieved rank, quality of both the individual's doctoral granting and current institutions, and individual productivity, as measured by both the quantity and quality of journal articles published. We calculate the unique explanatory effect and the indirect effect of gender in the salary model, arguing that if gender displays significant explanatory power, discrimination in hiring practices and/or in the subsequent allocation of rewards may exist. Our study contributes to the research on compensation and salary inequities in that we utilize publicly available data collected from the budgets of a large sample of public institutions as our measure of salary, thus enhancing the objectivity of the dependent variable. Also, the determinants of salary (specifically, research publication quality) are captured in a more accurate and comprehensive fashion than in previous studies. In contrast to previous research findings, our results suggest that gender is not associated with systematic differences in the salary of accounting faculty. Both research productivity and work experience vary across gender. Therefore, since males, on average, had a greater number of publications and more seniority, their salaries were higher than those of female faculty members. The results suggest that discrimination against either gender is not pervasive in the salary structure of the accounting academic comunity.

Professors and hamburgers: an international comparison of real academic salaries

In recent years, academic staff unions and associations have argued for higher salaries for academics on the grounds that existing salaries have not kept pace with inflation, are well below commercial salaries and, most glaringly, are much lower than the salaries of their overseas counterparts. However, most international comparisons are made based on exchange rate conversions, which is inappropriate since purchasing power differentials are only reflected in exchange rates in the long term. Furthermore, the volatility of exchange rates make such conversions highly inaccurate. A comparison is provided of real academic salaries by converting the nominal salaries in each country to their purchasing power equivalents, using the Big Mac Index. Our results show that real academic salaries are highest in Hong Kong and Singapore, relative to the developed countries, while Hong Kong tax and social security deductions are lowest. Furthermore, real salary levels, combined with intrinsic considerations such as the quality-of-life, indicate that Canada and New Zealand are unattractive places for visiting/migrating academics, while Australia and the USA are relatively attractive. It is suggested that these findings could be of use to policy-makers and academic unions in salary negotiations, as well as academics making relocation decisions.

Salary Determinants of Entry Level Academic Economists and Factors Influencing Hiring on the Tenure Track

This paper examines the characteristics of entry level academic economists and investigates the determinants of market salaries. Contrary to what might be expected we find that nominal salaries are not systematically adjusted to reflect observable differences in the cost of living and salary premiums are not paid to entry-level economists hired into higher ranked departments. Completing one's Ph.D. degree at a university with a highly ranked department, being hired on the tenure track, and accepting a position in a department within a business school with a ranked economics department all significantly influence academic salaries. Being hired on the tenure track is found to be particularly important. After analyzing the factors that influence salaries, we make predictive statements about the impact that observable characteristics have on the probability of being hired into tenure track positions.

Nursing faculty: one generation away from extinction?

Concern over an impending shortage of qualified nursing faculty sparked a statewide survey of nurses with graduate degrees in one midwestern state. A return rate of 61 per cent yielded a sample of 288. In general, nursing faculty members were older than nurses with graduate degrees employed in other roles. Three fourths of the sample worked full-time in stable positions in which they intended to remain until retirement. Fewer than one third were nurse educators; one-third were hospital employees. Nearly half the sample had nonnursing graduate degrees despite local availability of two nursing master's programs. Noncompetitive academic salaries, desire for clinical practice, and rising expectations in higher education were factors deterring nurses with graduate degrees from pursuing faculty roles. Improved compensation, greater respect, closer proximity to work, more realistic expectations, and improved opportunity to continue clinical practice were viewed as incentives to entice practicing nurses into faculty roles. Recommendations for addressing these important challenges are summarized. The next generation of nurses depends on strategic planning now to build the pool of qualified faculty for the future.

Consistent Estimation of Faculty Rank Effects in Academic Salary Models.

Faculty rank is often included as an explanatory variable in academic salary models. Because there is reason to believe that this results in specification bias, rank effects should be estimated endogenously in salary models. A salary model in which faculty rank is endogenous is estimated in this article and the results are compared with those obtained from a conventional specification that treats rank as exogenous.