| By: |
Gianni De Fraja;
Giovanni Facchini;
John Gathergood |
| Abstract: |
Using individual level data on the salary of all UK university professors,
matched to results on the performance of academic departments from the 2014
Research Excellence Framework, we study the relationship between academic
salaries and research performance. The UK higher education sector is
particularly interesting because professorial salaries are unregulated and the
outcome of the official research evaluation is a key financial concern of
universities. To frame our analysis, we 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 funding, university sector, salary in-equality |
| Date: |
2016 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notgep:16/13&r=sog |