Abstract

report that, in their hiring decisions, academic departments place inappropriate weight on ascriptive criteria (e.g., prestige of the candidate’s doctoral department), which are weak predictors of subsequent research productivity, although a better and more universalistic predictor is available (i.e., pre-employment research productivity). Long et al. hold that using ascriptive criteria leads to an unfair and inefficient allocation of resources in academic research. This article tests the hypothesis that “doctoral institution prestige” has inappropriate weight in academic hiring decisions, and finds consistent evidence that it does. However, the importance of “doctoral institution prestige” appears to be declining, and the misallocation of resources introduced by the use of this criterion in hiring decisions appears to be small.

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