title: The Hog Cycle of Law Professors: An Econometric Time Series Analysis of the Entry-Level Job Market in Legal Academia.
abstract: The (German) market for law professors fulfils the conditions for a hog cycle: In the short run, supply cannot be extended or limited; future law professors must be hired soon after they first present themselves, or leave the market; demand is inelastic. Using a comprehensive German dataset, we show that the number of market entries today is negatively correlated with the number of market entries eight years ago. This suggests short-sighted behavior of young scholars at the time when they decide to prepare for the market. Using our statistical model, we make out-of-sample predictions for the German academic market in law until 2020.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8513-8532
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Engel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Hanjo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hamann
mesh_terms: D005178:Faculty; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D017059:Models, Econometric