Seniority and Monopsony in the Academic Labor Market: Comment

This paper further explores the work of both Michael Ransom and Emily Hoffman, who have written on monopsony in the academic labor market, using data from University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMASS) from 1989. This comment has three principal findings: (i) the return to seniority at UMASS is positive, at least for low levels of seniority, which is contrary to Ransom’s results; (ii) faculty hired with tenure have significantly higher salaries (which supports the Ransom monopsony hypothesis); and (iii) sex discrimination, as described by Hoffman, is much lower in 1989 than it was 15 years prior.