The supply of new engineers in Germany

We estimate a labor supply model with German data on engineering enrollments and starting salaries. In one model agents have backward looking expectations, in the other rational expectations on future wages. Only the model with backward looking expectations delivers significant coefficients with signs in accordance with out theoretical model. Lagged enrollments as right hand side variables improve the fit of our model. The latter suggests the need for a theory of dynamic labor supply. Supply effects through changing sizes of cohorts do not explain variations in enrollments. In addition, we find that welfare improvements through the provision of information on future wages are considerable.