The Impact of Potential Labor Supply on Licensing Exam Difficulty

Entry into licensed professions requires meeting competency requirements, typ- ically assessed through licensing examinations. This paper explores whether the number of individuals attempting to enter a profession (potential supply) affects the difficulty of the entry examination. The empirical results suggest that a larger potential supply may lead to more difficult licensing exams and lower pass rates. This implies that licensing may partially shelter the market from supply shocks and limit the impact of policies targeted at increasing labor supply.occupational licensing, minimum standards, entry regulation, legal market.

State-based business licensing in Australia: the Constitution, economics and international perspectives

This paper considers the potential for s92 of the Commonwealth Constitution to invalidate inconsistent State-based licensing requirements in relation to the carrying out of particular occupations

Download, Stream, or Somewhere in Between: The Potential for Legal Music Use in Podcasting

Podcasting is an increasingly popular new digital technology with the potential to be a great conduit of expression. Currently, the use of music is limited in podcasting due in large part to uncertainty as to what rights must be licensed before copyrighted music can be used legitimately. This iBrief examines what legal rights are implicated by podcasting by analyzing U.S. copyright law and comparing related technologies. This iBrief concludes that onerous licensing requirements are unnecessary, and for podcasting to realize its potential, a simple licensing framework must be established

Doctors without borders: The returns to an occupational license for Soviet immigrant physicians in Israel

Re-licensing requirements for professionals that move across borders are widespread. In this paper, we measure the returns to an occupational license using novel data on Soviet trained physicians that immigrated to Israel. An immigrant re-training assignment rule used by the Israel Ministry of Health provides an exogenous source of variation in re-licensing outcomes. Instrumental variables and quantile treatment effects estimates of the returns to an occupational license indicate excess wages due to occupational entry restrictions and negative selection into licensing status. We develop a model of optimal license acquisition which suggests that the wages of high-skilled immigrant physicians in the nonphysician sector outweigh the lower direct costs that these immigrants face in acquiring a medical license. Licensing thus leads to lower average quality of service. However, the positive earnings effect of entry restrictions far outweighs the lower practitioner quality earnings effect that licensing induces.Licensing, occupational mobility, regulation, information and product quality, immigration, regression dicontinuity design, quantile regression, quantile treatment effects

Mortgage Broker Regulations That Matter: Analyzing Earnings, Employment, and Outcomes for Consumers

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 consumers. In response, states have increasingly regulated the business, largely by creating and tightening occupational licensing requirements for mortgage brokers. The question of whether increased occupational licensing of mortgage brokers improves consumer outcomes is theoretically ambiguous and has been little studied empirically. This study introduces a new database of mortgage broker licensing requirements and assesses the relationships between these requirements and outcomes in both the labor market for brokers and the consumer market for mortgages. We find that one typical regulation—the requirement in many states that mortgage brokers maintain a surety bond or minimum net worth—has a significant and fairly consistent statistical relationship with both labor and consumer market outcomes. In particular, we find that tighter bonding/net worth requirements are associated with slightly higher broker earnings, fewer brokers, fewer subprime mortgages, higher foreclosure rates, and a greater percentage of high-interest-rate mortgages. Although we do not provide a full causal interpretation of these results, we take seriously the possibility that restrictive bonding requirements for mortgage brokers have unintended negative consequences for many consumers. On balance, our results also seem to support the relevance of theories of occupational licensing that stress the importance of financial entry and exit barriers.

Medical Licensing: An Obstacle to Affordable, Quality Care

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 dictate standards for licensing and disciplining medical professionals. They also list tasks clinicians are allowed to perform. One view is that state licensing of medical professionals assures quality. In contrast, I argue here that licensure not only fails to protect consumers from incompetent physicians, but, by raising barriers to entry, makes health care more expensive and less accessible. Institutional oversight and a sophisticated network of private accrediting and certification organizations, all motivated by the need to protect reputations and avoid legal liability, offer whatever consumer protections exist today. Consumers would benefit were states to eliminate professional licensing in medicine and leave education, credentialing, and scope-of-practice decisions entirely to the private sector and the courts. If eliminating licensing is politically infeasible, some preliminary steps might be generally acceptable.States could increase workforce mobility by recognizing licenses issued by other states. For mid-level clinicians, eliminating education requirements beyond an initial degree would allow employers and consumers to select the appropriate level of expertise. At the very least, state legislators should be alert to the self-interest of medical professional organizations that may lie behind the licensing proposals brought to the legislature for approval

Denying Credit: The Failure to Transition Troops to Civilian Employment

Since September 11, 2001, more than 2.5 million veterans have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both ("Gulf War II veterans"). It is widely recognized that securing meaningful employment is one of the most important factors determining the success of each veteran's return to civilian life, influencing not only household income but also the physical and psychological health of these veterans and their families. Promoting veteran employment should thus be a top national priority, a measure o the country's support and respect for military service. And promoting veteran employment should be easy, because many veterans separate from service with significant military training and experience relevant to jobs in the civilian labor market. Yet, despite their marketable skills, Gulf War II veterans are unemployed at rates higher than those of the labor force overall.One substantial obstacle to the employment of veterans is the failure of federal, state, and local licensing authorities to credit military training and experience in granting occupational and professional licenses. This failure can compel veterans to spend months or years in classes and apprenticeship programs waiting for licenses and certifications for which their military training and experience should already have qualified them. In addition to military-civilian collaboration failures within the current licensing regime, certain Gulf War II veterans also suffer employment difficulty beyond licensing, because the occupations related to the licenses for which they may qualify either pay low wages or face anemic growth over the next decade. These veterans could benefit from targeted efforts at further training or education. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) knows where most Gulf War II veterans reside, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) knows the labor market conditions in those areas with high concentrations of veterans. But, at a national level, information regarding the military training and experience (referred to as Military Occupational Specialty, or "MOS") of Gulf War II veterans is held only by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), which has refused to make it public. And although the DoD has created its own Military Credentialing and Licensing Task Force, it has thus far focused on only a limited number of MOSes instead of providing complete data to aid lawmakers responsible for reintegrating the millions of service members who were once under the charge of the DoD. This lack of data frustrates policymakers' efforts to determine which licensing regimes might be reformed so as to maximize opportunities for veterans to secure licenses, and to tailor training and education programs for those veterans whose military skill sets are applicable only to low-wage or low-growth jobs. To overcome the DoD's failure to disclose national MOS data, this report looked to an alternative source -- a random sample of the MOS data voluntarily provided to the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs by Gulf War II veterans. Using this sample, the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC) has produced the first study of its kind: one in which MOS data can be compared to local labor market conditions and state licensing requirements. This report thus identifies those licenses that align with the military training and experience of the largest number of Gulf War II veterans in Connecticut, and then compares those to DoL estimates of current and future labor market conditions. The result is a mapping of licensing regimes policymakers should reform to credit military service and best promote veteran employment. Further, to the extent the Connecticut population of Gulf War II veterans is representative of the nation as a whole, and that local labor market conditions and licensing requirements are comparable to those elsewhere in the country, the conclusions of this report will have national implications. Conversely, if Connecticut's Gulf War II veterans are not representative, or labor market conditions and licensing requirements vary, this study evidences the need to undertake comparable investigations in other states, and for the DoD to cease withholding MOS data that could aid policymakers in better promoting veteran employment nationally

Occupational Licensing: A Barrier To Entrepreneurship

Since colonial times in America, governments have imposed licenses on certain professions and trades in the name of public health or safety. Today, licensing most often originates at the state level. But all levels of government engage in this form of regulation and ought to care about the labor market inefficiencies that are caused by licensing. Over time, the number of licensed professions has grown and expanded to industries that pose little or no threat to public safety. In some states for example, a license is required to become a tour guide, sell caskets, or braid hair.About 29 percent of jobs require a government-issued license -- a dramatic increase from just forty years ago when only 10 percent of workers were licensed. These licensure requirements result in fewer practitioners, who can demand higher wages, while also stifling new business creation and innovation

United States Nuclear Export Controls

This article will explore the U.S. nuclear export controls regime. It will initially discuss controls affecting the export of nuclear material, facilities, and specially designed components of nuclear facilities. This section will specifically consider export licensing procedures and requirements, agreements for nuclear cooperation, the specific export criteria for major nuclear cooperation, as well as the necessary policy determination. Then the Article will discuss the procedures and requirements for obtaining a license to export dual-use equipment, the authorization necessary for the export of nuclear technology and the subsequent arrangement process, which further aids in the implementation of U.S. non-proliferation policies