Order Statistics and Estimation of Professors’ Salaries

Authors

Mark Pocock, Brigham Young University
Dr. James B. McDonald, Brigham Young University

Keywords

order statistics, professor's salaries, income distribution

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Economics

Abstract

A knowledge of income distribution of different professions has many policy implications. Important applications include being able to make competitive salary offers for potential employees and being able to provide appropriate financial incentives which helps to retain valued employees. In some professions salary data are readily available and in others data are limited. In academics the amount of salary data is very diverse. In one case, Oklahoma State University publishes the highest, lowest, and mean salaries by rank and discipline for different Carnegie Research Classifications. Given the estimated distribution, deciles can be estimated which facilitates an analysis of salary structure. This methodology is applied to estimate the salary distribution of statistics professors.

Recommended Citation

Pocock, Mark and McDonald, Dr. James B. (2014) "Order Statistics and Estimation of Professors’ Salaries," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2014: Iss. 1, Article 187.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2014/iss1/187