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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]