Faculty members like to do research. "Research could be a
consumption good for faculty. If faculty enjoy engaging
in research, then, faculty could be paid partially ‘in
kind’ with research opportunities. Such in-kind payments
are consistent with the observed compensating
differential -- lower pay in academia compared to the
private sector for similar skills," the authors write.
You don't say! I would be tempted to dismiss this as academic navel-gazing, but the abstract for the paper <http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14974>; seems quite genuine:
Some worry that faculty devoting more time to research
harms teaching and thus harms students' human capital
accumulation. ... Research is needed, particularly to
address what employers seek from higher education
graduates and to assess the validity of current measures
of teaching quality.
On the one hand, a candid look at university life is always a good thing. Using the metrics like "human capital accumulation" may not be. Has anyone done a comparative study of college and university mission statements?
Edited: to fix formatting of quotes.