Fine-tuning the Predictive Model of the American Accounting Association 1971-72 and 1972-73 Committees on Future Professorial Supply and Demand.

Abstract The article presents information on the report by the American Accounting Association (AAA) 1971-72 and 1972-72. Most of their data relate to the supply aspect. The authors also have collected data which can be used to evaluate the accuracy of the functions used by the AAA committee. Those who witnessed the brisk recruiting activity at the 1975 AAA National Convention in Tucson and heard from both recruiters and those being recruited that there continues to be a strong sellers' market might conclude that even the Optimistic series projection by the AAA committee was in error. This series predicted that annual supply would exceed annual new demand by the 1976-77 academic year. An important consideration which should not be ignored is that whenever a field or discipline goes through a period of short supply, a backlog of demand (the cumulative excess of demand over supply) will build up, and this takes some time to eliminate. If one were to accept the Optimistic series projection and were to assume a zero backlog at the end of the 1971-72 academic year (which is not very realistic in view of the short supply situation of the 1960's), there would be a backlog demand of 112 by the 1975-76 academic year.