摘要：In our dual roles as economists and educators, we are interested in the way incentives drive our allocation of time to teaching and other academic activities. The study by Harter, Becker and Watts investigates this question for U.S. academic economists from 1995 to 2005. Their first key result is rather nice in a way: it suggests that U.S. academic economists continue to irrationally spend too much time on teaching given the clear premium in reward for research outcomes. This echoes their own prior studies and those in other countries (Guest and Duhs, 2002, for example); all of which may be welcome confirmation that academic economists are not flint-hard homo economicus when it comes to caring about student learning. On the other hand it may simply reflect pressures of large classes and teaching administration that cannot be avoided. The authors’ second key finding is perhaps more interesting: that female economists allocate proportionally more time to teaching than do male economists, especially at research universities. Some possible explanations are offered and further work is recommended. It does seem to us an important question, not least for its implications for female salary and career progression.
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