Professor Dominance

As an econ TA, I often feel like I have complete autonomy over my discussion sections. I write my own syllabus and determine how to allocate points- whether between quizzes, homework, or participation. I also design my discussion sections and can choose what I want to talk about and whether or not I will give practice problems. Besides one brownie meeting at the beginning of the semester, the professors almost never ask for updates on how sections are going. Each TA, who is the agent in this scenario, is fairly insulated from the principal, the professor, and I have never heard of a professor disciplining a TA. You could assume that TA’ing is a model of agency autonomy.

However, another model, that of professor dominance, may actually lead to the same results. There may be ex-post sanctions that have created ex-ante incentives to do what the professor wants. For example, when it comes to grading exams, it is in my rational self-interest to not follow the key and instead grade very easily and give my students lots of points. This makes me look like I’m amazing at teaching and saves time when grading and with student exam appeals. However, when I do grade, I try to strictly follow the key, even if it means taking off lots of points. This is in the interest of the principal. Therefore, there must be some ex-post sanction that gives me an ex-ante incentive to follow the key. This could be the fact that other students might complain about my grading to the head TA or professor, and I could get in trouble and potentially lose my job. Through the feedback of students, the professor is able to monitor the results of my work and constrain my actions in this manner, instead of monitoring my inputs, which is way more inefficient. Thus, the model of professor dominance may be more accurate of TA’ing than the model of agency autonomy.