"It's safe to say that if all our economicsfaculty made the amount he did, we would have tohave a much smaller department," Clarida said.
"You can't have a great university without agreat economics department, and all the greatuniversities tend to go after people like RobertBarro," he added.
Clarida recalled from his days in graduateschool at Harvard that the University has alwaysbeen reluctant to enter bidding wars.
"Any Harvard professor, if he were reallyconcerned about how much money he made, [couldfind more money elsewhere]," Clarida said.
Williamson said he was concerned that otherschools's more lucrative offers would soon leaveHarvard behind if the University did not turn its$11 billion-plus endowment towards higher bids fortop faculty.
"I don't feel it's life threatening yet,"Williamson said. "But [there are cases] when ifthe University wants to play in the major leagues,it needs to make the same kind of offers that aremade in Major League Baseball.