Barber Licensure and the Supply of Barber Shops: Evidence from U.S. States
Given the growth in occupational licensure and the importance of barriers to entry for low-income workers, we analyzed the effect of barber licensure on the number of barber shops across U.S. states. We find that the number of required exams is robustly associated in a negative way with the number of barber shops per capita in a state. However, we find that other restrictions such as age requirements and fees have no consistent relationship with the number of barber shops. This might be the result of our limited data set. We feel that this exploratory look at the issue of barber licensure opens up future research in this area, especially research that can establish more of a causal link.
Loading...