Changing Incentives and Time Allocations for Academic Economists: Results from 1995 and 2000 National Surveys

Abstract:     
How much time do academic economists allocate to teaching, research, and service, and how much time do their departments want them to allocate to these pursuits? As a result of the decline in economics majors in the early 1990s, was there a change in the reward system and time allocation of academic economists toward teaching? In this study we combine 1995 and 2000 survey data collected by Becker and Watts (1996, 2001) to describe teaching methods in undergraduate economics courses at five Carnegie Foundation categories of colleges and universities in the United States. Our focus here, however, is on a previously unreported section of these surveys, in which respondents were asked to indicate the percentage of time they allocated to teaching, research, and service, and also to provide the weightings they felt their own departments assigned to these activities in making decisions about annual raises or promotion and tenure.

JEL Classifications: A0

Case and Teaching Paper Series