Thinking about “Exit, Voice and Loyalty” in Wisconsin
The Joint Finance Committee motion to remove tenure from state statute. Winners of the most competitive research awards the University of Wisconsin–Madison provides to its scholars have made a statement, found here.
We are especially concerned about provision 39 of the omnibus motion, which authorizes the Board of Regents to terminate faculty appointments for reasons of “program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection.” This is a profound departure from current policy, which allows termination of faculty appointments only for just cause after due notice and hearing, or in the event of a fiscal emergency. If passed into law, this provision would greatly weaken any guarantees of tenure provided by the Board of Regents. In essence, state statute would say that tenure at the University of Wisconsin does not mean what it means at every other institution: a guarantee that university administrators cannot arbitrarily dismiss faculty who have earned tenure through research, teaching, and service.
I have seen some individuals (as far as I can tell, typically not involved in knowledge generating sectors of the economy) who asserted that a move to weaken the protections of tenure would eliminate “dead wood”, and reduce costs.
It strikes me that it is useful to consider a rational agent model of individual decision-making, in response to weakening of tenure protections relative to other academic institutions, in assessing the plausibility of such arguments.
First, agents would make the relevant cost-benefit calculations. As costs (from uncertainty) rise, those agents with the highest value of outside options (relative to costs of moving) would move. On average, one would guess that the most accomplished would then tend to move.
Second, the idea of compensating differentials (look at any intro economics textbook) is relevant. If uncertainty is higher, then rational agents — particularly those coming from outside, perhaps as new hires — would tend to demand a higher salary relative to what otherwise would be the case.
Third, the removal of tenure protections could be taken as a signal by state leaders (in the legislature, in the executive) that the contributions by those involved in the academic enterprise are not valued. If leadership at the state level attempts to stifle dissent, then loyalty is reduced, and exit becomes a more attractive option. (Some will recognize this idea from Hirschman.).
So, if one’s objective were to drive out the most academically successful professors, raise cost per unit output of teaching/research (recalling UW brings in billions of dollars of Federal and other grants), and demoralizing the university faculty, then the JFC’s motion is the optimal route.
The entire statement can be found here.
Update: Addition coverage, Herzog/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Simmons/Wisconsin State Journal.
Update, 6/5: My colleague Don Moynihan (commentary), quoted in NYT.
Update, 6/7: Some examples of the “exit” option being exercised, here.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Wisconsin the only state that mentions tenure in its statues? If so, removing this wouldn’t not eliminate tenure, it would make Wisconsin like every other state in respect state statues involving tenure.
Mike: In some ways, yes, in some ways no — since additional language (to my knowledge not in for instance California) is also included, which would make dismissal yet easier. See Simmons/Wisconsin State Journal.
mike, wisconsin university system is one of the premier university systems in the country, if not the world. perhaps the stronger state protected tenure system had something to do with that ranking? if so, then by reducing the perceived tenure value in wisconsin could very well have a negative impact on its relative standing to other quality higher institutions of learning. perhaps without the strong tenure protections, the quality of the wisconsin university system would not have reached the level of excellence it currently maintains? if you want to be singular and excellent, why would you lower your standards to the same as the mediocre schools and expect a better outcome?
Tenure should not be a matter of state law. For example, tenure at Harvard is not guaranteed by the state, to the best of my knowledge.
Steven Kopits: To the best of my knowledge (having been a student there), Harvard is not a state university, nor are its employees state employees.
Correct. You work for a state-owned enterprise, so everything’s political and it’s all about rent-seeking.
Personally, I am appalled that tenure would be granted in law.
Let me elaborate. I am not against tenure per se. I could see some very important benefits and protections that arise from it.
I am very much against state-owned enterprises, having far more experience with them than any other reader of this site, I would guess.
In any event, if you work for the voters of Wisconsin, and they have elected officials who are opposed to tenure, well, that’s what you’re going to get.
Steven Kopits: Yes, first thing we do, let’s kill off the FDIC! We don’t need no stinkin’ deposit insurance. That would surely make the banking system more stable.
I have no idea what the FDIC has to do with tenure.
On the other hand, I can’t tell you how often I saw matters of industry-specific governance ending up in the political process in Hungary. It was awful.
Is the legislature in Wisconsin expert in matters of teacher policy? If they are not, then these matters should be decided on a delegated level, that is, at the level of the university’s regents, just as they are at places like Harvard or Yale, where tenure has miraculously survived, despite a lack of legislative support.
Both conservatives and egalitarians are willing to let the ends justify the means. Classical liberals, by contrast, are all about process. Let me tell you, if you work for a state-owned enterprise, and the opposition party feels no stake in your activities, then you should expect that they will come for you if they come to power. My advice to you would have been to make sure the opposition also feels themselves to be a stakeholder in your system (ie, distributed patronage–and yes, I mean you, NPR), or better yet, to remove as much as possible your activities from the political process.
As it is, Republicans can feel, I think, with some justification, that the UW system is their enemy. And as such, you can expect attacks on the institution. So, your choices are to be scrupulously neutral or inclusive of a broader range of views. But to expect people whose hands you keep biting to keep funding you, well, I think you’re only being realistic to the extent you can prevail in the political process.
Steven Kopits: FDIC is a state owned enterprise. You wrote extensively about how they were useless in your comment. Forgive me if I didn’t find my example relevant.
Foolish and irrelevant, Prof Chinn – surely the logical option would be to end the cow college era and privatize the state university system – or financially insulate it from the legislature – Harvard can do more or less what it wants – like admissions-dissing bright Asians
Ah, now I understand.
The FDIC serves a regulatory function, in significant part related to systemic risk. Because it acts as regulator, ordinarily we would expect it to be a government entity. Perhaps if you were a hard core libertarian, you could privatize its deposit gathering function, with the caveat that during a financial crisis, there’s a good chance that it will need an explicit government guarantee.
https://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/
Menzie, any thoughts on this?
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/06/did-the-wisconsin-state-system-just-abolish-tenure.html
bjssp: See here. It is interesteing that the MO for the Wisconsin GOP is typically to put in a budget bill things that are not fiscal in nature (e.g. here).
Good point. I’d also say that Wisconsin Republicans (more Walker than the legislators, but probably them, too) aren’t exactly forthcoming about their intentions, and they might have death by a thousand cuts in mind.
Here is a link to a state you might add to your favorite states to compare: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32925294
BBC gives a big sloppy kiss to Indiana.
Over here at the Dept of Free Market Economics at Wossamotta U, where none of us have tenure, (dept motto: “we don’t need tenure to generate knowledge”), we derive different predictions from the model.
“First, agents would make the relevant cost-benefit calculations. As costs (from uncertainty) rise, those agents with the highest value of outside options (relative to costs of moving) would move. On average, one would guess that the most accomplished would then tend to move.”
Those agents with the highest value of outside options will be the least likely to move. Since the motivation for making tenure at UW consistent with every other University is efficient cost cutting, rational cost cutters are hardly motivated to go after the most productive researchers in the University. And rational agents with the best outside options will understand that and not be worried. The faculty that would be worried are those who have poor research output or low demand for their discipline from students. Being rational agents, they would be most incentivized to look outside the system and move if possible. But those lower productivity faculty are just the agents that the rational central planner cost cutter wants to move. Moreover, the rational central planner’s policy rule includes along with a change in tenure the ability to pay bonus payments. Thus, the central planning cost cutter will retain and hire more high output faculty, reduce the lower output faculty, and lower the overall cost to taxpayers.
“Second, the idea of compensating differentials (look at any intro economics textbook) is relevant. If uncertainty is higher, then rational agents — particularly those coming from outside, perhaps as new hires — would tend to demand a higher salary relative to what otherwise would be the case.”
Here, we need to add a bit of extra information structure to the model to get a stable equilibrium. There are two types of agents: high productivity and low productivity agents. Agents know what type they are but the central planner cost cutter does not. However, by announcing a policy of potential cost cutting of lower productivity agents, the rational central planer cost cutter incentivizes the lower productivity agents to reveal their type and apply for positions with lower frequency, thereby increasing the average research output of the University.
“Third, the removal of tenure protections could be taken as a signal by state leaders (in the legislature, in the executive) that the contributions by those involved in the academic enterprise are not valued. If leadership at the state level attempts to stifle dissent, then loyalty is reduced, and exit becomes a more attractive option. (Some will recognize this idea from Hirschman.).”
The policy is a signal that high research output and relevance to the needs of the students are valued. Those faculty who excel in the new metric will tend to be attracted to the University and those who don’t will tend to leave.
You obviously know precisely nothing about how researchers are recruited for AAU institutions and I’d suggest keeping your mouth shut until you learn how it works.
Unlike private sector hires, tenure track hires at AAU institutions, especially in the mathematical, biological, medical, scientific and engineering disciplines require that you come up with a “Start-Up Package” which is a fixed dollar commitment to the recruit for use, at the discretion of the recruit, in their research. The present minimally acceptable package for a chemistry professor is around $1.5-million, for physics it is around $1.25-million. If your institution can only come up with $500,000 package, then you had better accept a 2nd or 3rd tier candidate and they won’t be “faculty who excel in the new metric”. These packages are financed between the Research arm of the institution, the hiring department, and the campus or college in varying proportions, and it is usually the department that runs out of funds first.
So the constant shedding of staff as you suggest will mean that at the typical research university, the funds for these packages will be quickly depleted and hiring of staff will be from lower tier candidates in fairly short order. Unless of course you, yourself, care to help your alma mater with say a small $10-million donation?
Should the unthinkable come to pass and the UW-Madison be forced into this Randian nightmare; it will first start to lose faculty members who gained tenure in the last 5 years; since they will be accorded tenure by any recruiting institutions (the UW will try to keep some faculty with matching offers but their funds will run dry very quickly–they have only $50-miilon in free reserves for the entire institutions for all purposes–a very small amount for an institution its size). The faculty that will be lured away will be the best and brightest as even universities generally do not recruit under performers. The next hurdle comes as recruiting efforts to fill those vacancies begin to fall flat as the top-sought candidates refuse to consider an institution that will not guarantee their positions when all other comparable institutions in the entire world do so.
Then as departmental rankings plunge, even the 2nd tier candidates begin to shy away from applying, and the fall becomes self-reinforcing. Actually I think that ALEC sold the notion of ending tenure to the Wisconsin Legislature so as to bolster southern universities who now can put in competitive offers for top notch researchers.
Let me shut my mouth for a second and see what I’ve learned about how Universities work.
Where will this unthinkable Randian nightmare end? First the best faculty will be bid away. And then the next best will realize that they don’t have any good colleagues and they’ll leave too. The process will continue until only the janitors are left, who will then be asked by Walker to start teaching classes, after a suitable cut in pay. But then the students will have to become the janitors and will leave for other state schools. Soon Madison will be a ghost town.
A reply to Rick Stryker:
You wrote: “Those agents with the highest value of outside options will be the least likely to move. Since the motivation for making tenure at UW consistent with every other University is efficient cost cutting, rational cost cutters are hardly motivated to go after the most productive researchers in the University. And rational agents with the best outside options will understand that and not be worried. The faculty that would be worried are those who have poor research output or low demand for their discipline from students. Being rational agents, they would be most incentivized to look outside the system and move if possible. But those lower productivity faculty are just the agents that the rational central planner cost cutter wants to move. Moreover, the rational central planner’s policy rule includes along with a change in tenure the ability to pay bonus payments. Thus, the central planning cost cutter will retain and hire more high output faculty, reduce the lower output faculty, and lower the overall cost to taxpayers.”
Perhaps your comment was meant to be ironic, and I missed it, but for the sake of discussion I’d like to raise some issues with several of your points and assumptions in this passage:
(1) If the proposed budget law passes (which seems almost certain), the tenure policy in the UW System will *not* be “consistent with every other university.” Yes, Wisconsin has been unique in having tenure written into state law, so the absence of tenure in state law will indeed be more consistent with every other *state*. However, what the legislators have proposed is a definition of tenure that is much weaker than the vast majority of universities in this country. Please see http://budget.wisc.edu/content/uploads/2015/05/UW_omnibus_motion.pdf, items 12 and 39. Of particular relevance here is that tenured professors will be able to be laid off for essentially any reason, by Boards and chancellors with more power than they had previously.
(2) You’re assuming that the only utility valued by the rational agent is money (e.g., the bonus). However, for professors, academic freedom, autonomy, and the power to do things like set the curriculum, among other things (e.g., intellectual community), are all part of the utility bundle that makes an academic job appealing. Since the proposed legislation will diminish this utility bundle–both through the tenure changes and the weakening of shared governance–the rational agent who values these more than the money (or equally to the money) would logically look elsewhere.
(3) But now let’s go with the stricter assumption that money compensation is, in fact, the only utility that our rational agents are seeking to maximize. Here’s the rub, at least in Wisconsin: by cutting state support AND continuing to put a freeze on tuition, the only way I can see to generate the money to compensate these extraordinary agents is to cut so many programs and lay off so many faculty that you end up with something that barely resembles a university. You thereby reduce student demand, cutting further into tuition revenue.
On top of this, it’s well-documented that UW System salaries (especially outside Madison) are on average considerably lower than those of peer institutions. Again, it seems to me that the only way to make your assumptions valid would be to reduce the universities to very small, elite technical institutions, supporting a very small number of highly specialized faculty with salaries and bonuses so high that they compete not only with other institutions but also with the corporate sector. Presumably, either fewer students would be able to attend these small, specialized universities, or the same number could attend them, but with larger classes.
(4) Faculty with low research output, poor teaching evaluations, or low demand for their discipline won’t be competitive on the marketplace, so looking outside the system probably won’t help them. Besides, the rational cost cutters will use the weakened version of tenure (e.g.,, “we can lay you off for reasons of program modification or redirection”) to lay these people off and/or cut their programs entirely. Most will simply have to leave the profession.
(5) You say that the high-productivity, high-demand faculty “will not be worried.” Your assumption in this passage is that the main thing motivating rational agents to look beyond the university would be “worry” (e.g., about being laid off), but this is not at all convincing. Again, it is precisely these rational agents that other university systems–able to offer not only higher salaries, but also the utility bundle that includes conventional tenure, shared governance, and the like–would bid for. The UW System would then have to bid ever higher to keep them, and at some point it will not have enough resources to retain all of them. Your assumption seems to be that for high-productivity, high-demand faculty, the UW System will do whatever it takes – pay them extremely high salaries and bonuses, give them fantastic working conditions, etc. – in order to keep them there. But how is that consistent with the UW System as “rational cost cutter”?
(6) Another complication to add is that teaching loads vary widely among institutions and among disciplines. Let’s say that your rational cost-cutters have raised teaching loads to 4-4 throughout the UW-System (as has been proposed, notoriously, in North Carolina). For some faculty, this would be OK (especially those who prioritize teaching), but for those whose utility bundles include low teaching loads, so that they can devote more time and attention to conducting and publishing research – and of course, this would include many if not most of the System’s most in-demand scholars – they would rationally gravitate toward outside offers that would allow them to put more or equal emphasis on research.
(7) Finally, as for your summary statements: “Thus, the central planning cost cutter will retain and hire more high output faculty, reduce the lower output faculty, and lower the overall cost to taxpayers,” and then, “The policy is a signal that high research output and relevance to the needs of the students are valued. Those faculty who excel in the new metric will tend to be attracted to the University and those who don’t will tend to leave.” I agree with you that the modified tenure policy does give the cost cutter the ability to reduce the lower output faculty; it can now simply lay them off or cut their programs, for any reason it chooses. But I’m not at all persuaded that the cost cutter will somehow be able to “retain and hire more high output faculty,” on the grounds that competitors will be able to offer utility bundles – both monetary and otherwise – much more attractive to these faculty, and the resources will simply not be there in the UW System to outbid the competitors.
These are not the only questions I could raise, but I’ll leave it there for now.
Ryan,
You have a lot of points there, but many of them stem from the misconception that what UW is doing is somehow weakening tenure relative to competing institutions. Although policies vary widely, it’s quite common for Universities to have the ability to fire tenured faculty because of “financial exigency” or “program discontinuation.” The National Education Association has a helpful page called The Truth About Tenure in Higher Education.. Here’s a relevant excerpt:
MYTH:
Tenure is a lifetime job guarantee.
REALITY:
Tenure is simply a right to due process; it means that a college or university cannot fire a tenured professor without presenting evidence that the professor is incompetent or behaves unprofessionally or that an academic department needs to be closed or the school is in serious financial difficulty. Nationally, about 2 percent of tenured faculty are dismissed in a typical year.
Ryan,
You mentioned that you weren’t sure whether my comment was ironic. Keep in mind that I’m a professor of free market economics at Wossamotta U. You may have heard of my most famous student, who was a football star while at the University and who want on to foil a fiendish plot to flood the world economy with commodity money. Thus, my “model” was not exactly a serious academic proposal.
But I appreciate your comments and wanted to respond more fully.
All joking aside, here’s what I’m saying. First, budget cuts are a given. We can argue whether they ought to happen and there’s no doubt that budget cuts are never fun or good. But if they do have to happen, what’s the best way to do them as efficiently as possible? If we look at how private industry tends to handle them, you usually find that private companies prefer layoffs to across the board salary reductions. The reason is that you want to reduce costs in the least destructive manner possible. So you eliminate the least productive areas. Any time you cut the budget, you have to worry about your most productive people being bid away to competitors. That’s why you don’t tend to do across the board salary freezes or cuts if you can help it. But sometimes the reality is that you have to do both.
I interpret what Walker is doing as giving the University Administrators additional flexibility to make the cuts he is asking for as efficiently as possible, with the least damage to the system. He seems to me to be doing the responsible thing here.
On the details, I’m not really sure if the UW proposal is worse or better than other University systems. As I mentioned, it’s quite common for Universities to have flexibility to dismiss tenured faculty in cases of financial exigency or program discontinuation. Even UW has a financial emergency provision in the law. The question is what is the definition of financial exigency or emergency and what are the rules around these cases. UW doesn’t look particularly worse than other places to me, although I haven’t done an exhaustive survey. For example, Colorado can dismiss tenured faculty for program discontinuation but they are required to try to place the dislocated faculty elsewhere if possible. But on the other hand, they don’t seem to have the review and appeal process that is proposed for UW.
Rick Stryker: Thank you for confirming you have no idea how a top research university works. I was pretty sure that you didn’t work at a university before (despite your consistent anonymizing your IP address). Now I know for sure.
Well, please return to your alternate world, where 500,000 jobs is the typical net job creation rate in a recovery.
Menzie,
I see. By arguing that having the ability to layoff unproductive or irrelevant faculty makes for a more efficient budget cutting process, I have obviously revealed that I don’t work for a University, just as you suspected. Well, then, I have discovered a couple of imposters then. Two fellows by the name of Robert Cooter and Aaron Edlin wrote an op ed in the LA Times in 2009 titled UC System: Layoffs not Paycuts concerning the then budget crisis in the University of California system. They argued against the Board of Regents plan to institute pay cuts, arguing that layoffs would be a more efficient way to cut the budget. They note that the University of California can already layoff tenured faculty if they eliminate programs, which is similar to the proposal for the change in tenure at UW. In their solution, the University system would identify the least productive, including tenured faculty members, and institute layoffs to save 8% of payroll. The remaining faculty would eliminate 8-10% of their least productive activities.
Obviously these two know nothing about Universities and can never have worked in one. And yet Cooter claims that he is a professor of law, and Edling claims he’s a professor of law and economics, both at UC Berkeley! Why does the LA Times allow imposters to write articles?
I wish I had your perception to tell where someone works just from the nature of his arguments. What do you think I do then, given that you have been unable to divine my occupation from my ip address? Would you mind telling my fortune while you are at it?
Rick Stryker: Good for you continuing your reign of error and misrepresentation. If you actually read the op-ed, you’d see they argue for eliminating entire units. Well, the language in JFC motion 39 allows much wider discretion in whom to remove.
My view is with your level of analysis (500,000 per month net job creation is typical!!!), you clearly couldn’t make the cut in the publish-or-perish world of research university academia. In addition, my experience has been tenured academics are not afraid of posting under their own name. You on the other hand go to great lengths to obscure your identity. So, QED! Not 100% positive (nothing ever is), but you can identify yourself for all, and confirm I am wrong (I am curious — why don’t you identify yourself — don’t you have the courage of your convictions?).
Menzie,
I prefer to comment pseudonymously, as do other conservatives on this blog, which in no way implies that I can’t be an academic. The most dangerous place for any conservative to be, whether student or faculty member, is on the campus of a typical university. Conservatives know that progressives, who dominate universities, give lip service to academic freedom, but in fact encourage the lively exchange of a single idea. Even tenure will not necessarily protect conservatives from the retribution of progressives, as Prof. McAdams found out at Marquette.
I would think the evidence is very great that I’m in fact an academic. How many non-academics go around quoting academic literature? If I’m not, then how do you explain that?
Rick Stryker: Individuals in think tanks, Feds, IMF, etc. cite academic economic work. So I remain dubious, and will remain so as long as you remain anonymous. If you are at a research campus, then for sure your institution needs greater tenure protections.
tenure did protect mcadams at marquette. his violation of student academic rights while placing the student in a harassing situation are what led to his demise. such behavior is not protected by tenure.
A few interesting articles from “Inside Higher Education”:
Pro-tenure: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/05/faculty-members-protest-tenure-shared-governance-changes-board-regents and https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/06/05/move-undermine-tenure-wisconsin-has-national-implications-essay
Anti-tenure: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/04/28/essay-impact-tenure-process
There is no perfect system. Being tenured can mean freedom to pursue new research, become a bit unconventional, and challenge the “system” with “non-consensus” thinking. It can also mean a bit of coasting for those whose goal was tenure rather than academic excellence… more like achieving civil service status. Hopefully, universities would encourage the former and make life miserable for the latter. My opinion is that more of the latter is likely at second-tier universities where expectations for the faculty are probably lower than those at top-tier universities where severe competition for the very best academics and among the best mean the likelihood of deadwood far less possible.
What does the NEA have to say? http://www.nea.org/home/33067.htm
Getting rid of deadwood does not reduce costs. Typically we have salary inversion, at least in B-Schools. Thus dead wood hired years ago with 2% annual increases may be below rookie salaries, especially if there is 2/9 summer research money included for those rookies. Plus dead wood teaching loads are probably twice rookie loads. Thus replacing a dead wood with two rookies could easily quadruple the cost. Now, research productivity would of course improve, but it would be costly. Yes, rookie salaries should be higher without tenure, and research expectations similarly high. Think of it like sports teams and free agency. Bottom line, getting rid of tenure will be very costly, but possibly good for research output. Probably not what they had in mind….
Pete,
You presume “all things being equal”, but perhaps that is not the case. Since there appears to be a surplus of academics for the positions, could not the opposite of what you posit be true?
Bruce: salary information for state universities in Wisconsin is public information. I suggest you take a look at the salaries in economics departments and B-schools, because you’ll see that the rookies are in fact commanding higher salaries than many of the veterans (not all of whom are in fact “deadwood”) – in some cases, MUCH higher salaries. The other dynamic that this sets in motion is that “non-deadwood” veterans then have the incentive to go on the market so that they can get counter-offers to keep up with the rookies – and this in fact has happened quite frequently. Keep in mind that departments like these are competing not only with other universities, but in many cases also with the private sector.
Why doesn’t WI go all in and abolish its University System. Just offer tuition supplements to WI students to go to private or other states universities? Would that sort of “free ridership” save money? MMMM? Would neighboring states just up out of state tuition to capture the supplement? Interesting.
bruce, the surplus of academics in many fields is a bit of an illusion. in some of the science and engineering programs, you may get 200+ phd’s applying for the position. out of that group, 80% or more are from academic degree programs which are not held in high enough regard to select the candidate. they are applying from second tier programs or foreign programs. the vast majority of technical faculty positions are filled by candidates from a select number of research intensive programs. all universities claim to be research intensive, but very few are actually viewed as such. condescending, perhaps, but that is the reality. so the demand is not as great as one perceives from the outside. pay in the academic world is actually not very good compared to many private sector industries. people like the autonomy of the academic world, and place a very high value on that aspect. i think that is a difficulty topic for the economic field to incorporate into their models.
Menzie – I know nothing about WI politics and the nexus with its university other than what I read in your blog. But I can see how past comments on these boards about your Governor’s policies would raise his ire, if he ever noticed them. I hope the new tenure rules will not have a chilling effect on your posts. I think they are a valuable public service of the type that tenure was designed to protect and encourage.
don: Thanks for the encouragement. Fortunately, I have outside options, so I am more free than many to “voice”.
And in any case, my parents taught me it was important to be honest when I saw rank stupidity at work.
The only way to defend tenure, is to support tenure for all. I am
unaware of anyone advocating tenure for all.
One of Tyler Cowen’s thoughts: “people object to losing battles and then the subsequent/ongoing humiliation, and their bruised feelings induce them to overrate the import of an observed change.” Menzie, have you read Tyler’s observations?
rtd: no, I prefer to get my information from folks within a couple hundred miles of the action. have you read this? Just some of the folks exiting.
By this same logic, you’re not qualified to discuss matters in D.C.? Maybe you should have said “no, I prefer to get my information from folks who share my subjective biases.”
As I’ve mentioned here & elsewhere, it is disappointing how much you take away from this blog & Prof Hamilton’s work therein.
rtd: Proximity matters. I mean no disrespect to Professor Cowen, but for the institutional aspects of tenure in Wisconsin, I’d much prefer a recounting of the facts from a beat reporter (not necessarily folks who share my subjective biases) than someone from afar, with little familiarity with Wisconsin institutions/law/charters. I’ve lived here ten years and I still haven’t mastered all aspects of Wisconsin budgeting, for instance. Analysis without context is problematic.
(By the way, there is another difference — I lived for several years in Washington, and worked at institutions there.)
If you would have taken the effort to read Cowen’s various comments on this story, you would see he has, in fact, linked to local news.
Also, I’m wondering how long did you reside in Kansas?
However, the most import aspect might be you admitting (one of) your subjective biases – kudos.
In any case, “people object to losing battles and then the subsequent/ongoing humiliation, and their bruised feelings induce them to overrate the import of an observed change.”
rtd: well I read both comments I could find. The first quotes an article that I had long ago read even when he posted; distance is not dead — those in closer proximity are more aware of what’s going on. I would say his assessment of what was and was not in JFC motion 39 is incorrect. That’s because one has to know what the context is (including the changes in shared governance, and under what conditions firings can occur).
Second, his paragraph long comment which you quote is pretty obvious, and not what I would say is an economic insight. I don’t think I ever said ending tenure in the UW system was the end of the world. But it does signal an end of an era of public investment in higher education and research. By the way, did you notice how they’ll let go the scientists at the DNR (Department of Natural Resources)? To paraphrase, I think the mindset is “first thing we do let’s kill all the geologists…” (well, actually the biologists will be first in the sights, because they have been providing the bulk of the “unwelcome news”).
rtd: for Kansas news go to Kansas reporters first. For estimating an error correction model on macro data, go to a macroeconomist first.
In your comment above, you are showing just the sort of academic elitism that JDH founded this blog to combat.
Readers do not need to have tenure at a research university to make legitimate comments nor is it the case that you must agree with those comments for them to be legitimate. Moreover, think tanks, central banks, and international organizations are filled with excellent people. They are not populated with people who “couldn’t make the cut in the publish-or-perish world of research university academia” as you are insinuating.
Rick Stryker: Touchy, touchy. Let me clarify. You are eliding two separate comments. I have the highest regard for Fed economists, almost becoming one myself. To be specific, I thought you in particular, as an individual, could not make the cut at a top 30 research university, given the quality of analysis represented in your various comments.
But please feel to identify you university affiliation to prove me wrong, and I will be happy to revise. Until then my assessment of your abilities remains unaltered.
Menzie,
No need to clarify. I understand that you are unable to defend your tenure point on the facts and evidence and must therefore go negative, attacking the credibility, competence, and credentials of those whose arguments you are unable to rebut. That’s fine. You’ve done that before and you’ll do it again.
But this time your real views on non-academicians were revealed. Your “some of my best friends are” attempted walk back of what you clearly insinuated, was, interestingly enough, applied to only one of the three categories mentioned.
Rick Stryker: Where did I use “some of my best friends” phrase? I have the highest respect for those who work at the Fed and Fed banks, the IMF, government agencies such as CBO and CEA and some of the think tanks (and did in fact almost take the Fed job) — evidenced by the fact I cite their work. If you work at Heritage (which you have vociferously defended in the comments, upon occasion), well then you might be out of luck.
I’m still waiting for your proof that 500,000 is typical job creation rate in a recovery, as you indicated was the case. Forgive me, but after that, my mind was made up.
By the way, this comment is written by someone who has been a visiting scholar at IMF, Federal Reserve Board, ECB, SF Fed, BIS, and employed by CEA, CBO, and Brookings.
Menzie,
Too bad I had to remind you to include the other categories. There is damning with faint praise and there is damning by omission.
I can’t understand for the life of me why you keep embarrassing yourself bringing up the 500K point. You did a silly calculation on Romney’s 500k job remark in the heat of a political campaign and I called you on it. As I recall, you counted the number of times that there were monthly job gains of at least 500K since 1939 and concluded the number was small. True, but misleading. As I pointed out to you, Romney’s 500K remark was relative to the current size of the labor force, which was much, much bigger than it was in 1939. To make a sensible comparison, I suggested, you could scale the 500K to the size of the labor force in the past and if you did that you’d see that monthly growth of that magnitude, when expressed as a fraction of labor force size, was much more common than you were claiming. That’s what I actually said. And yet you keep asserting dishonestly that I somehow claimed that 500K in absolute magnitude is typical. I said no such thing.
You made the silly calculation. I corrected you. And then you claim that means I can’t get tenure. Bizarre beyond belief.
Rick Stryker: please refresh your memory about how often 500,000, expressed as a proportion (which is not what Romney said in any event) occurs, in this post.
Rick, Menzie should never be mentioned in the same sentence as his esteemed co-blogger, especially with regards to these issues. One has consistently shown to be biased, subjective, sloppy, and sophomoric – and it ain’t JDH.
rtd: Thank you for your comments. You did not comment on my substantive queries regarding DNR and the Republican moves to eliminate scientists and how that informs one’s views on the nature of events in Wisconsin. Nor did you address the point that I made — namely one shouldn’t be impugned for deciding that one shouldn’t read everything under the sun, and prioritize. Finally, I do not see how you have any idea what I read, as opposed to your assertion that I only read things that validate my opinion.
However, I am glad you did not criticize me again for showing graphs based on Presidential administrations. I am also thankful you don’t criticize all the graphs comparing performance of different states over the same time period. After all, conditions differ; using your criterion, that should never be done. Also, comparing different countries over the same time period. Conditions differ…
rtd,
I’ve tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but I must admit that this episode has caused me to reconsider my opinion of him.
Menzie,
Yes, let’s refresh our memories. That was the post in which you attempted to move the goal post to rescue your silly calculation. As you may recall, in your initial post mentioning Romney, you counted the number of occurrences of >500K using all the data, starting in 1939. I called you on the logic of that, saying that you need to scale to the size of the labor force. You acknowledged the point in your new post that you just linked to, but then you changed the sample size from starting in 1939, throwing out data before 1990. You then doubled down by including a count of the unemployment rate below 4%, but in that case you changed sample size again and threw out data before 1970.
In my follow up comments, I pointed out that if you included the unemployment data you threw out, going back to 1948, you get a different picture on the unemployment rate than what you were trying to sell. I also pointed out to you in my comments that comparing employment gains following the worst recession since the great depression to the previous two relatively minor recessions and recoveries hardly makes sense.
The reality is that, caught making a silly calculation, you came back with a corrected calculation and cherry-picked data to try to prove your point. Again, I find it bizarre that you would try to use this episode to question my competence. The relevant question is, why would a tenured professor at a major research university make silly calculations and then try to justify them after the fact using cherry-picked data?
Unlike you, I would never stoop to answer that question by impugning your professional competence. I know you are competent. I think it happened because we were in the heat of a political campaign and you got carried away. As I told you many times, I suggested we forget it when you’d bring it up. Campaign’s over. But you keep bringing it up so I decided to answer it finally.
Rick Stryker: If you think 500,000 is typical in 2012, and you have to go back to a sample at least 30 years before 2012 before you get numbers (proportionately) like that, then you have a funny idea of “typical”. I think this delusional idea merits a full post — keep a lookout within the week!!! I’m looking forward to dissecting your assertion in detail. (Interestingly, Romney subsequently dropped his norm to 250,000/mo; you should remember that — you commented on that post.)
As an aside, in Governor Romney’s remarks, he said nothing about proportionality.
Still waiting to hear where you teach!!!
A) I’m not obliged to ‘comment’ on anything you view as substantive – especially as I don’t know what you’re referencing.
B) I’m not obliged to address a point you made about something I’ve never said (see above).
C) Your ego is quite inflated to think I follow your every move in the blogosphere. As I’ve seen with different commentators, I know you have an unhealthy obsession with those posters. Me? I’m currently at an airport replying to your idiocy between Steph Curry jumpshots, LeBron James drives, and Black Cat Porters. Considering you spend such a ridiculously large amount of time concerned with the details of comments in this blog, your tenure might should be the first to be reconsidered in Wisconsin.
D) Where did I make an assertion of what you’ve read? I only remember asking if you read Cowen’s posts or not. Also, when did I comment that you only read things that validate your opinion? I might have, but don’t remember as I’m not overly concerned with this blog.
E) I criticized many of your graphs because your message was disingenuous.
F) Since we’re talking about what we’re grateful for, I’m grateful (with you being an econometrics professor – I’d be embarrassed if my ‘metrics prof made similar sloppy mistakes that you have in a public forum) I didn’t have to call you out on more high school level statistic mistakes within this post.
G) Comments such as these are some of the best evidence of your sophomoric & childish attitude. Thanks (again), sir.
H) All hail JDH! A blogger for which others can only dream to live up to.
rtd:
A) Elimination of scientists in DNR (it was what was in my previous comment, so I didn’t think it a stretch you’d catch that)
B) See (A)
C) I’m not sure where you inferred you should follow everything I write; I just thought you’d be following those comments I make in response to your specific comments. Thank you for your commentary on time use and why tenure should be revoked for me. By the way, did you know the semester ended in Wisconsin over two weeks ago? It’s the summer…Believe it or not, I am *not* paid on a 12 month salary, but rather a 9 month. But let not facts encumber your arguments.
By the way, you don’t need to respond, if you don’t want to.
D) You wrote: “Maybe you should have said “no, I prefer to get my information from folks who share my subjective biases.”” This certainly seems to imply that you know what I read.
E) If context differs between Presidential administration, it differs between countries and states, and hence all graphs of those nature should be subject to the same critique, using transitivity. Yes, or no? I await your equal criticism of all such graphs.
F) Please be specific — what *mistakes* have I made besides the rounding error in calculating annualized q/q growth rates (for which I apologized)?
G) Thanks you for your comments.
H) Agreed.
Addendum: What do you think of the new NOAA estimates on temperature trends and the erasure of the “hiatus”?
I think the exact same thing as I did before r.e.: “NOAA estimates on teperature tends” …… why do you ask?
I suppose what I don’t see is how the recent estimates from NOAA with regards to the ‘hiatus’ would change my view of your disingenuous global warming commentary that preys on the innumerate. I try to hold people with your background & experience to a higher regard in dealing with statistics, especially in public forums.
rtd, i don’t think menzie has been disingenuous in his discussion of global warming. the recent analysis of data suggests surface temps have not been in the hiatus many claim. in addition, additional data appears to indicate more heat is accumulating in the oceans than previously acknowledged. this would correlate with observed increases in sea level. the evidence suggests concerns over global warming are not unfounded.
baffling,
I’m baffled as I never made a comment about the recent analysis other than it didn’t change my views on Menzie’s disingenuous global warming post in the past.
it’s baffling that you would then consider menzie’s post disingenuous.
baffling,
Obviously we’re all baffled. If Menzie was (in my opinion) disingenuous/misleading in a previous post, why would recent commentary change what HE did in the past and my views on it? Unless I misinterpreted the meaning behind Menzie’s post I labeled disingenuous, I can’t see how NOAA’s recent research would change that label.
rtd, in your opinion, menzie wrote a disingenuous post. i would disagree. recent data would suggest it was not disingenuous as well.
baffling,
Maybe you’re baffled about my comments & Menzie’s post. In any case, recent data doesn’t impact my opinion of the disingenuous nature of his warming post I commented on previously.
I am very late to this discussion, but there is a point I have not seen explicitly made.
Eveyrbody agrees that rational faculty (and most people) are willing to trade off job security for pay, so that if tanure is eliminated and you wish to maintain an equal level of quality of faculty, you will need to raise pay, either to retain people or replace those leaving with people of equivalent quality.
However, the whole context of this is part of a massive budget cut, with the new Regent talking about shutting down programs and so on. In such an environment, there will be no increases in pay to compenstate for the loss of tenure. Quality will go down, period.
Aside to Kopits, since you brag so much about your experiences privatizing SOEs, how many universities were privatized in Hungary after the end of communist rule as opposed to simply starting new private ones up (I know the latter have occurred and people were purged at others, but most of the others remained state-owned, I believe).