Are Agricultural Experiment Station Faculty Salaries Competitively or Monopsonistically Determined?

26 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 1998

See all articles by Christopher B. Barrett

Christopher B. Barrett

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management

DeeVon Bailey

Utah State University - College of Business - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 1998

Abstract

We examine the determinants of agricultural experiment station faculty salaries and find that productivity pays N as manifest by grantsmanship, publications, and the elicitation of competing offers N with no residual evidence of a negative seniority-salary relationship that could signal university monopsony power. This contrasts with findings in the previous literature on faculty salaries. Moreover, national market salary benchmarks, which may proxy for imperfectly observable productivity, correlate almost one-for-one with individual faculty salaries, with individual deviations from peers' salaries proving essentially random. This evidence is much more consistent with the hypothesis that experiment station faculty salaries are determined in a competitive labor market than with the prevailing wisdom that they are set monopsonistically.

JEL Classification: A1, Q1, J3, J4

Suggested Citation

Barrett, Christopher B. and Bailey, DeeVon, Are Agricultural Experiment Station Faculty Salaries Competitively or Monopsonistically Determined? (June 1998). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=138509 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.138509

Christopher B. Barrett (Contact Author)

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management ( email )

315 Warren Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-7801
United States
607-255-4489 (Phone)
607-255-9984 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://aem.cornell.edu/faculty_sites/cbb2/

DeeVon Bailey

Utah State University - College of Business - Department of Economics ( email )

3530 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-3530
United States

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