This examination of the academic reward structure at American universities involves an analysis of the marketplace for academic labor and an empirical investigation of the reward structure in several of the different disciplines found in the modern university. Four dimensions of the reward structure are considered: the merit raise, the annual salary increment, promotion, and career options. Elements seen to relate to these dimensions include the interrelatedness of academic markets, sex discrimination, variations by academic discipline, publication, allocations of faculty time, and alternative determinants of faculty salary. The psychic reward structure--all the ways that faculty derive pleasure or discomfort from the activities they perform--is seen as highly complex, extremely subtle, and beyond the expertise of the economist, and is not considered in this analysis. (Author/MSE)