In the course of an unfortunate ad hominem attack on a good economist, blogger Deb Frisch raises an interesting question:

3. Tenured university professors enjoy the most protected jobs in the country. They don’t produce anything like “goods” that are consumed in the market. Isn’t it a little bit hypocritical for economics professors to argue for outsourcing and worship the market? Has any economics professor argued for abolishing tenure or opening up the competition for the $25 million the National Science Foundation spends every year on economics research to foreign labor? I reckon there are economists in Bangalore who would do research for less than the $20,000 a month American economists charge NSF. It would be nice if economics professors would put their mouths where their money is and argue for outsourcing their own jobs.

I’m a tenured university professor at a state university, and I argue for free trade, which includes the freedom to outsource. (As for “worshipping” the market, I always liked my teacher Thomas Sowell’s line: “I don’t have faith in the market; I have evidence.”)

I also think the net effects of tenure are probably negative at state universities in a competitive academic market like the US/Canada. Competition gives us our best hope for academic hiring (and firing) to be based on merit or productivity rather than politics or whim. Competition doesn’t help if all hiring committees have the same strong political biases that override considerations of merit or productivity, or the same mistaken views on what constitutes merit or productivity, but in those cases tenure only makes the problem more permanent.

I’d leave the question of tenure at private universities up to those universities. Better private schools (e.g. the University of Rochester) already offer five-year non-tenure contracts in some cases. Lesser private schools, I predict, would have a harder time hiring productive faculty (i.e. would have to pay more) without some form of tenure.

Has any economics professor argued in writing for abolishing tenure? Yes, across the political spectrum, and it’s not hard to find them. If you Google “abolish tenure economist” you quickly find tenure abolition defended by liberal Robert Reich, libertarians Robert W. McGee and Walter Block, and conservative Martin Anderson.

Has any economics professor argued for opening up the NSF to foreign competition? Not that I know of, but it’s not a bad idea. Though not quite as good an idea as abolishing the NSF. Disclaimer: I’ve never had an NSF grant.

ADDENDUM: Law firms and accounting firms have a form of tenure; it's called "becoming a partner". (A new hire with a freshly minted degree has a probationary period, then either becomes partner or is let go.) Is it any of our business to opine on whether this is a good idea for law firms and accounting firms? No, we presume that competition among the firms will sort it out. Academic tenure is only a public policy issue because so many universities are tax-supported. The only way to finally discover the optimal set of academic tenure systems would be to privatize all the universities.