Volume 24, Number 2 (Spring) 1989
Stapleton, David C. 1989. "Cohort Size and the Academic Labor Market." Journal of Human Resources 24(2):221-252.
Educational policymakers have long been concerned that baby booms and busts alternately cause shortages and surpluses in academic labor markets. These concerns have been supported by models which purport to forecast the effects of change in cohort size on the academic labor market. In this paper it is argued that policymakers should be more skeptical of such forecasts. The basis for the argument is a detailed analysis of a model of the academic labor market for economists. The inescapable conclusion is that forecasts from such models provide little, if any, support for policies designed to offset the impact of change in cohort size on the academic labor market.
The author acknowledges substantial debts to W. Lee Hansen and Douglas Young for extensive comments on earlier versions of this paper and for past collaborative efforts on which the present paper builds. He also received helpful comments from Alan Gustman, Joyce Manchester, and several anonymous referees. Remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the author. The National Research Council data used in this project were purchased with a grant from Dartmouth College. The author would also like to thank Lori Thurgood at N.R.C., Vance Grant at the U.S. Department of Education's Center for Statistics, J. G. Huckenpahler at the National Science Foundation, and Ernst W. Stromsdorfer for their assistance in obtaining the most recent data on, respectively, PhDs, bachelor degrees, graduate enrollments, and salaries.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X