Job Exchanges for Professors: Could this Save Tenure?

The present system of tenure in American colleges leads to a virtual closure of active markets for tenured faculty. In turn, this produces two kinds of mismatches: colleges have faculty they do not want; and faculty are in colleges or departments they would rather leave behind. These mismatches are not without costs. Without abandoning or diluting tenure, colleges can alleviate these mismatches if they re-create markets for tenured faculty by establishing job exchanges that allow professors to "exchange" their positions across departments within the same college and across colleges.