A measure of the impact of tenure

Although prevalent on campuses, the rationale for tenure lacks an economic explanation of its influence on campus outcomes such as teaching. Because o nly half of American academic librarians are eligible for tenure, they comp rise a sample appropriate for testing the qualitative impact of tenure. The model reported here shows that the quality of institutions is at least par tially predictable by the number of librarians and their tenure status. Ten ure, therefore. appears to have an impact as a monitor of quality in academ e.