Economic Modelling ELSEVIER Economic Modelling 13 (1996) 257-287 The use of RAS in manpower forecasting: A microeconomic approach Patrick van Eijs, Lex Borghans Research Centre for Education and the Labour M arket, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands Revised May 1995 Abstract This paper deals with the use of FL%3 in manpower forecasting. The starting point is a microeconomic allocation model of the firm in which the optimal employment by education is determined. Two restricting hypotheses, dealing with the uniformity of wage changes and technologies over industries, are formulated. Several variants of the allocation model, differing with regard to accepting these hypotheses, are investigated. It is shown that these variants can all be rearranged to obtain the RAS structure. The performances of the FLU variants indicate the validity of the hypotheses. It is concluded that neither hypothesis can be rejected. JEL classification: C67; D21 Keywords: RAS; Manpower forecasting 1. Introduction Manpower forecasting deals with projecting labour demand and supply, espe- cially its occupational and educational structure. Its purpose is to give insight into future developments in the labour market, which enables participants to make necessary adjustments to the changing situation in time. To make manpower forecasts suitable for this kind of decision making, it is very important to distin- guish different groups on the labour market, if these groups can be distinguished in 0264~9993/96/$15.00 0 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0264-9993 (95)00022- 4