Forecasting Demand and Supply of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers Report of a Workshop on Methodology (2000) / Chapter Skim
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2 Models of Demand for Doctoral Scientists and Engineers
2 Models of Demand for Doctoral Scientists and Engineers
Pages 15-22
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From page 15... ...
If there are too few scientists and engineers, the economy and its competitive position, both now and in the future, are put at risk. An adequate supply of doctoral scientists and engineers is also important to the nation's colleges and universities, since these institutions train both graduate students and undergraduates and carry out university research.
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From page 16... ...
FORECASTING DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF DOCTORAL SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS FIGURE 2-1 The social and individual costs of shortage and surplus. Wages wit \ \ Ss \ \ \ \D2 D1 E1 Employment Box 1: In the very short run When labor demand increases from Do to D2, perhaps because of the implementation of a new technology, the supply of scientists isfixed atop and the increase in demand only increases the wages of scientists currently in the laborforcefrom w~ to [~2.
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From page 17... ...
. , D' \D2 E1 E4 E'3 E3 Employment Box 4: Government policy Lathe government anticipated the increase ire demand, it could try to increase supply in/ advar/ce to StG by providingfundingfor graduate students.
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From page 18... ...
pointed out in his workshop paper, forecasting these markets beyond the very short term is extraordinarily difficult: The future paths of levels of employment and wages in professional labor markets depend on the paths of at least ten exogenous variables. Two or three of these exogenous variables, dealing primarily with the age structure of the population, can be predicted quite well for twenty or more years into the future.
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From page 19... ...
the expected retirement of doctoral faculty who had been hired in the late 1960s and early 1970s to teach baby boom children. All of these unanticipated exogenous events worked to dampen the demographically based forecasts of an increase in demand for doctoral scientists and engineers.
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From page 20... ...
However, if regularly updated models had been available that took into account recent events and market adjustment mechanisms, and communicated the true limits of forecast accuracy, then forecast errors would have been smaller and less surprising. Such models could have provided an earlier warning that the market outlook would not be as rosy as the analysts of the late 1980s anticipated.
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From page 21... ...
constructed a detailed, field-disaggregated simulation model that forecast considerable oversupply in most science and engineering fields. Their report pointed to the demand for graduate students driven by research funding as an important explanation of why production of new Ph.D.s in science and engineering exceeded academic demand.
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From page 22... ...
For those with a bachelor's degree in computer science, 53.5 percent take a job outside computer science, while only one-third of those with computer science jobs received their degree in that field. These flows may be less prevalent in markets for Ph.D.s, but are likely to become more important during periods of increased demand for particular types of workers.
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