Is the dominance of graduates from top-tier universities among tenured faculty driven by prestige or output? Evidence from 50 years of university appointments in Germany

Previous research has shown that a large fraction of tenured university faculty in the U.S. and other countries were trained at a small number of highly prestigious universities. The question remains whether this concentration is due to competitive advantages held by candidates from these universities, or whether it merely reflects the larger output of early-career researchers aspiring to faculty positions by these universities. To address this question, we analyze data covering the full population of doctoral graduates in Germany since the 1960s. Similar to studies of the U.S. system of higher education, we observe a strong concentration of professors trained at only a small number of universities. However, we find no evidence indicating that the prestige of the doctoral degree-granting university systematically affects individuals’ odds of being appointed to professorships. Despite increasing stratification tendencies, our results do not indicate that the importance of the degree-granting university for academic careers has increased. While doctoral graduates from top-tier universities are more likely to secure faculty positions at similar institutions, this is mostly due to returns to their own alma mater after initial appointments elsewhere.