Retention of talented academic researchers: Evidence from a government intervention. (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Courty, Pascal; Sim, John
• Is Part Of: Canadian journal of economics. Volume 48:Number 5(2015:Dec.)
• Page Start: 1635
• Page End: 1660
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: Economics -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1111/caje.12175
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-4085

Abstract

Abstract: The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program is designed primarily to retain academic talent in Canadian universities by providing targeted grants to outstanding researchers. Once awarded a chair at her home university, a researcher's compensation increases by 6.3% on average, with a significant decline over CRC tenure. Furthermore, the chance of the researcher changing jobs does not decrease. Although universities report spending more than half of the grant on compensation, only a small portion of the grant can be accounted for as a compensation increase. This demonstrates the difficulty in designing government interventions to have an impact on academic retention.