A game-theoretic explanation of the administrative lattice in institutionsof higher learning

We provide a game-theoretic model of academic organizations, focusing on th e strategic interaction of prototypical overseers, administrators, and prof essors. By identifying key principal-agent games routinely played in colleg es and universities, we begin to unpack the black box typically used to con ceptualize these institutions. Our approach suggests an explanation for the seemingly inevitable drift of institutions of higher education into such w ell-documented phenomena as academic ratchet and administrative lattice and builds an understanding of the organizational conditions in which drift wo uld be restrained. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: C72; D23; D82; I21.