reference library

Personal appearance professionals in the United States — such as barbers, cosmetologists, and manicurists — must typically be licensed. These licensing requirements vary from state to state, and they are…
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We show that occupational licensing has significant negative effects on labor market fluidity defined as cross-occupation mobility. Using a balanced panel of workers constructed from the CPS and SIPP data,…
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People living in rural areas have worse health outcomes than their urban counterparts do. Understanding what factors account for this could inform policy interventions for reducing rural-urban disparities in health….
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Following the 2008 financial crisis (which occurred during the Great Recession that began in December 2007), businesses and corporations experienced substantial difficulty in accessing credit required to maintain operations at…
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The United States spends more on health care than any other country, with costs approaching 18% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Prior studies estimated that approximately 30% of health…
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Why are prices in some sectors increasing dramatically even as economy-wide technology and productivity improves? Education and healthcare are notable examples of sectors seemingly stricken by constantly rising prices. Educational…
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All PAs must practice with a collaborating physician; however, state laws dictate the extent of that relationship. This interactive guide provides an overview of PA scope of practice laws by…
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In 2005 the United States spent $6,401 per capita on health care-more than double the per capita spending in the median Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country. Between…
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The use of nurse practitioners (NPs) in primary care is one way to address growing patient demand and improve care delivery. However, little is known about trends in NP presence…
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Wisconsin issues four different types of credentials, which are: licenses, certificates, registrations, and permits. All types collectively are commonly referred to as credentials. For the purposes of this report, the…
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Child care in the United States is expensive, but its cost varies greatly by region. Data from Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit that works in child-care policy, indicate…
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An effective health care system needs to coordinate medical facilities with the behavioral and economic drivers in communities that are most related to good long-term health. Intermediaries can help this…
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BPOA worked in coordination with Saint Francis University’s Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation (CSOR) to compile data on regional equivalent professional and occupational licensure. The report found…
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Family physicians report some of the highest levels of burnout, but no published work has considered whether burnout is correlated with the broad scope of care that family physicians may…
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Arkansas policy makers are aware of their state’s high criminal recidivism rates (the percentage of released prisoners that reoffend). The criminal justice reforms in Arkansas have also indicated that policy…
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Nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), and certified nurse midwives (CNMs) represent a growing part of the nation’s primary care workforce. These Advanced Practice Clinicians help expand primary care capacity…
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During the past few decades, licensure, a state-enforced mechanism for regulating occupational entry, quickly became the most prevalent form of occupational closure. Broad consensus among researchers holds that licensure creates…
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I examine the effects of mandatory occupational licensure on the quality of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) using the staggered state-level adoption of the 150-hour Rule (the Rule). Although the Rule…
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We assess the welfare consequences of occupational licensing for workers and consumers. We estimate a model of labor market equilibrium in which licensing restricts labor supply but also affects labor…
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Wide variation exists between the nursing competence requirements seen in the emergency care context and the subsequent design of nursing education programmes. Clarifying nursing roles and scope of prac- tice…
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Nearly 30 percent of American jobs require a license today, up from less than five percent in the 1950s. For some professions, occupational licensing is necessary to protect the public…
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Telecontraception is the provision of contraception prescriptions online as an alternative to traditional clinic visits. In this study, standardized patients were asked to represent a range of relative and absolute…
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This study finds that roughly 19 percent of American workers now have a license to work, with individual state percentages ranging from about 14 to 27 percent. It also finds…
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Family physicians’ scope of practice is declining despite being well prepared to provide a range of clinical services. To evaluate whether this is a new phenomenon, we compared the proportions…
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Reduced competition among clinicians leads to higher prices for health care services, reduces choice, and negatively impacts overall health care quality and the efficient allocation of resources. Government policies have…
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For the past few decades, the United States has not produced enough primary care physicians. Moreover, too few physicians practice in rural and medically underserved areas, and the number of…
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Nonphysician providers (NPPs) increasingly perform imaging-guided procedures, but their roles interpreting imaging have received little attention. We characterize diagnostic imaging services rendered by NPPs (i.e., nurse practitioners and physician assistants)…
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We exploit state variation in licensing laws to study the effect of licensing on occupational choice using a boundary discontinuity design. We find that licensing reduces equilibrium labor supply by…
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This paper examines the existing research on the effects of occupational licensing and concludes with a discussion of possible reforms. Existing studies have yet to find a definitive link between…
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Many professionals in the financial services industry refer to themselves as financial advisers despite tremendous variation in business practices, compensation methods, and duties to act in the best interest of…
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We estimate the effects of removing the license requirement for hair braiding in Virginia in 2012. Using County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics data from 2004 through 2014, we find…
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Myth: All licensing is necessary to protect public safety. Proponents often argue that the dramatic growth in occupational licensing is necessary to ensure consumer safety. However, the body of available…
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It should be noted parenthetically that, while licensing causes the mean quality of legal practitioners to rise, by excluding those at the lower part of the qualitative range who could…
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This monograph presents the results of an Educational Testing Service study, studies by the Council of State Governments, and research by the Department of Labor staff on State occupational license…
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Occupational licensing is invariably justified as a means of protecting the public against incompetent and dishonest practitioners. The effect of mandatory licensure, however, is often to restrict entry into an…
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All of the regressions and test statistics generated to ascertain the effects on pharmacist availability consistently revealed the following: (1) Pharmacist-population ratios, the proxy for pharmacist availability, were found to…
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The proposition that the common law tends to evolve in the direction of economic efficiency has been advanced by Posner and others. This proposition implies that, over time, legal precedent…
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This paper examines the costs and benefits of occupational regulation. Over 800 occupations arc licensed by at least one of the fifty states. When properly designed and administered, occupational licensing…
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Consistent with general growth in wage inequality over the period, the greatest wage growth occurred in licensed occupations with the highest levels of income. Wage growth in the U.S. economy…
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Licensing laws can both serve the public by protecting consumers and harm competition by erecting unnecessary barriers to entry, but what has been missing from the legal analysis is that…
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Occupational licensing undermines consumer sovereignty and restricts occupational freedom in Alabama. Professional groups use the goal of protecting consumers from unqualified practitioners as cover to restrict access into the profession…
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This book provides a detailed, nontechnical overview of occupational licensing in the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union for students of the labor market, consumers, the…
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Unfortunately, there has not been a lot of public debate about the impact that these licenses have on workers. Far more attention has been paid to labor issues such as…
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The licensing of various professions is generally accepted as necessary to protect the public from incompetent and dishonest practitioners. At the same time, however, licensing restricts freedom of entry and…
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In a recent case (Gibson u. Berryhill 1973) the [Supreme] Court had the opportunity to review occupational licensing. In this case a group of licensed optometrists sought to prevent charges…
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To examine the hypothesis that occupational licensure is primarily a restrictive device to protect those licensed from competition, analysis focused on the licensure of non-professional occupations in Rhode Island, Massachusetts,…
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Empowered by the state legislatures and aligned with the profession they oversee, dental licensing boards inhibit competition through restrictive licensing practices. In the manner of a cartel, most boards have…
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I consider markets with asymmetric information. As suggested by Akerlof, quality deterioration in such markets may take place. I show that this is a general phenomenon. Minimum quality constraints (or…
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Occupational licensure can be approached within a framework of basic economics. The people of every country produce and consume diverse commodities and services. This mixed bag—the economy’s output—is produced by…
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This study is the first broad exploratory empirical investigation on the effect on the received quality of service from state licensed occupations. It sought to answer purely factual questions about…
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This paper gathers, presents, and evaluates current state of economic research concerning the interconnection between occupational licensing (and other occupational) restrictions and quality of service. It considers empirical evidence on…
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This study provides an empirical analysis of the effects of advertising and commercial practice on the price and quality of optometrists’ services. Data were collected by actually purchasing eye examinations…
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I analyse occupational licensing as an input regulation that requires minimum levels of human capital investment by professionals. By raising professionals’ training levels, licensing helps alleviate moral hazard problems associated…
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An argument is often made that occupational licensure protects members of the regulated industry by limiting supply and raising earnings. The purpose of this study is to examine entry barriers…
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Our findings provide evidence that, in both 1970 and 1982, restrictions on the use of dental auxiliaries raised the price of several dental procedures and the average price of a…
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The effect of licensing as a mechanism to control entry into occupations has been a neglected area of both regulation and labor market research. This study examines the role of…
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Recent upheavals within health care delivery, technological advances, and changing attitudes among consumers have challenged and changed health professions licensure. At the same time, traditional regulatory frameworks remain in place….
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This study examines the role of variations in occupational licensing policies and practices in improving the outputs of services provided to consumers, and the effect of restrictive regulations on the…
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A straightforward model of supply and demand is developed to analyze the regulation of a “Competitive “ industry —cosmetology —with demand shifts representing an enhancement of “quality “ and supply…
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Paralleling increased state involvement in teacher certification is the increase in teachers’ educational credentials, especially in public schools. For example, in 1971, over two-thirds of public-school teachers had a B.A.,…
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In the United States, state level boards dictate rules for physician licensure and discipline. Would-be physicians must complete an approved medical training program and pass a standardized test. Scope of-practice…
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Relicensing requirements for professionals who move across borders are widespread. In this article, we measure the effects of occupational licensing by exploiting an immigrant physician retraining assignment rule. Instrumental variables…
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Numerous studies have revealed little, if any, improvement in service quality from compulsory licensing. Oftentimes, licensing laws actually reduce service quality and public safety. There are a number of reasons…
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As the role of mortgage brokers in mortgage origination grew from insignificant in the 1980s to dominant in recent years, questions have arisen about whether its services help or harm…
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Thus, allow me to suggest a couple of “second-best” options that may have a better chance of making a more immediate impact.First, conduct periodic occupational licensing reviews. In addition to…
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Members of licensed occupations benefit from legal standards that limit entry into their professions. Is it ethical for these professionals to give political support to these standards? I examine the…
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In the United States, the authority to regulate medical professionals lies with the states. To practice within a state, clinicians must obtain a license from that state’s government. State statutes…
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This article studies the effect of recruitment restrictions on mobility and wages in the postbellum U.S. South. I estimate the effects of criminal fines charged for “enticement” (recruiting workers already…
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Recent research has suggested that the reduction of entry regulation can promote firm entry and job creation, but little is known about the quality of firms and jobs created through…
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Occupational licensing is among the fastest-growing labor market institutions in the U.S. economy. One of the key features of occupational licensing is that the law determines who gets to do…
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The issue of the government regulation of occupations involves the role of government in reconciling the special interests of the practitioners with those of society. The strictest form of occupational…
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Business enterprises are rarely formed as unionized firms. Similarly, even though occupations develop similar tasks and common procedures for doing a job, they are not begun as licensed occupations. Occupations…
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Recent estimates in standard models of wage determination for both unionization and occupational licensing have shown wage effects that are similar across the two institutions. These cross-sectional estimates use specialized…
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The analysis presented finds that local licensing of electricians is associated with approximately a 12-percent wage premium beyond that afforded by state regulations and that certain aspects of occupational requirements…
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Many of these arbitrary regulations are passed at the request of professional associations and government boards that want to protect the pocket books of their members by shutting out new…
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As the quantity and scope of regulations in Florida grow, so does the degree to which they affect the economy. In these circumstances, a little reform to the process of…
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But Rampenthal sees his company spurring broader changes in the legal services market, moving it toward an “ecosystem” that will more closely resemble the way medicine is delivered.“You don’t walk…
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In this paper I use a rich longitudinal database from Florida to compare the characteristics of alternatively certified teachers with their traditionally prepared colleagues. I analyze the relative effectiveness of…
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This paper argues that the sharing economy—through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms—is providing a solution to the lemons problem that many regulators have spent…
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If licensing places too many restrictions on this allocation of workers, it can reduce the overall efficiency of the labor market. When workers cannot enter jobs that make the best…
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Those concerned with restrictions on innovative technologies and business models often decry the stultifying effects of a ‘Mother, May I?’ approach, whereby the innovator needs government permission to enter a…
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The EU commission aims to understand the impact of occupational regulation on various labour market outcomes. This report addresses this theme by exploring how changes in the regulation status of…
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Licensing imposes barriers to entry in an occupation, effectively restricting the supply of licensed workers in the occupation, and driving prices up. We evaluate the effects of introducing mandatory licensing…
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Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Klobuchar, and Members of the Subcommittee: thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to testify about occupational licensing. This is an important economic issue,…
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This paper examines the evidence that the pay gap [among highly-paid professionals] is due to protectionist measures that restrict competition. The most important of these protectionist measures are licensing practices…
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As highlighted in a recent White House report, the share of workers in occupations requiring some sort of State license grew fivefold over the last half of the 20th century,…
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In most occupations, licensing is associated with lower unemployment rates, even after adjusting for observable worker differences. Another way to describe this result is that unlicensed workers bear a greater…
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Occupational licensing is intended to protect consumers. Whether it does so is an important, but unanswered, question. Exploiting variation across states and municipalities in the timing and details of midwifery…
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As a type of occupational regulation, licensure is intended to protect the public by ensuring that practitioners possess the required knowledge and skills to safely perform their craft. Unlike certifications,…
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Estimating consumer surplus is challenging because it requires identification of the entire demand curve. We rely on Uber’s “surge” pricing algorithm and the richness of its individual level data to…
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In 2015, CEA, the Treasury Office of Economic Policy, and the Department of Labor released a report on the evidence that licensing requirements raise the price of goods and services,…
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[T]his report puts occupational licensing to the test, using the District of Columbia’s now-defunct tour guide licensing scheme as a case study. It finds that the scheme had no effect…
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This study is the first of its kind to explore the relationship between three-year recidivism rates for new crimes and relate it to occupational licensing burdens by combining data from…
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While the United States has long been a top destination for the world’s best and brightest, it has fallen short when it comes to fully tapping the skills and training…
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The economic effects of occupational licensing remains an understudied topic, but even less is known about the effects of the removal of licensing legislation. In this paper we take advantage…
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Occupational licensing regulation has increased dramatically in importance over the last several decades, currently affecting more than one thousand occupations in the United States. I use confidential U.S. Census Bureau…
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[T]he purported benefits of occupational licensing requirements — particularly those imposed by active market participants — often fail to come to fruition in practice. This is not entirely surprising, given…
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The length of time from the implementation of an occupational licensing statute (i.e., licensing duration) may matter in influencing labor market outcomes. Adding to or raising the entry barriers are…
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Building upon our earlier research, we have applied a macroeconomic dynamic scoring model developed by economists at The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center to data collected by the U.S. Bureau…
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A 2017 study by the Institute for Justice (IJ) examined occupational licensure laws for 102 lower-income occupations and found that Michigan requires a license for 49 of them. Obtaining a…
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