Three Essays On Entry Barriers and Incentives in Labor Markets

Occupational choice at the margin depends on both the incentives for entry and barriers to entry. The primary entry barrier determined by regulation is an occupational license. These are government laws determining the minimum qualifications to enter an occupation including education, testing, fees, and background checks. These regulations are currently enforced on 25% of the US labor market. The laws are crafted to protect consumers from unsafe goods and services but also have important consequences in labor market outcomes. The consequences may include fewer workers entering the profession, changes to which workers enter the profession, and altering competition, all of which could adjust price and quality. Essays 1 and 2 analyze the impact of occupational licensing entry barriers first for the entire US labor market and then for real estate agents. Essay 2 also investigates the entry incentives of new agents by using local housing price changes to investigate the labor response. Essay 3 extends the analysis of entry incentives by focusing on the long run real estate agent labor response and the asymmetric response of real estate agents during the 2008-2011 housing crisis. Essay 1 analyzes the impact of occupational licensing laws on the US labor market broadly. Using survey data from 2015-2018, this essay analyzes the occupational licensing wage premium in the United States. The estimates show a robust 4-6% wage differential for licensed workers. This premium is robust to careful control for location/local labor market effects and occupation effects. The premium is also positive for the majority of individual occupations and groups of occupations estimated. Similar results are found using additional techniques, including a matching estimator and an analysis of border metropolitan statistical areas. Essay 2 investigates occupational licensing entry barriers in the real estate industry. The housing market is one of the largest economic markets in the United States, and the associated labor market for real estate agents is dynamic and responsive to housing fluctuations. This essay examines the labor market response of real estate agents to price changes and the potential effects of entry costs on labor supply, earnings, quality, and productivity. Data from the 2012-2017 American Community Survey are linked to local housing price fluctuations, sales, and days on the market for 100 large metro areas. The cost of entry associated with occupational licensing for new real estate agents is interacted with housing fluctuations to investigate the impact of entry barriers. The essay finds that a 10% increase in housing prices is associated with a 4% increase in the number of agents. However, increased license stringency reduces the labor market response by 30%. Younger workers and women are more responsive to entry costs. In the absence of entry costs, earnings do not increase as home prices increase, but higher entry costs are associated with higher earnings. The results also suggest that entry costs are not associated with higher quality, but the effect on productivity is inconclusive. This work contributes to the growing literature investigating the impact of occupational licensing on labor markets as well as the impact of regulation on dynamism and entrepreneurship. Essay 3 further investigates entry incentives in the real estate agent labor market. Housing prices increased from 2005-2007, decreased from 2008-2011, and increased after 2012. This essay investigates the labor response of real estate agents to local housing price fluctuation from 2005-2017 using the American Community Survey and housing data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. This turbulent housing market not only allows for the agent response estimates to be updated but also allows for a unique look into the asymmetric response of the agent labor market during a declining housing market. A 10% increase in housing prices over this period is associated with a 4.1% increase in the number of agents. The responsiveness is at its highest during the crisis with a 5.1% decrease in agents for a 10% decrease in housing prices. While the labor market had a large response during the crisis, there is a weak association of earnings and local housing prices during this period, which differs from previous research. This suggests the labor market did not fully respond to the housing decline on the extensive margin and prices fell faster than agents exited the industry. An analysis of the flow of agents is also conducted from 1977-2017. This includes the destination occupations for exiting agents as well as the origin occupations for new agents. While more agents exited during the housing crisis and the labor market performed poorly during this period, exiting agents did not experience relatively worse outcomes

How Does Occupational Licensing Affect Entry into the Medical Field? An Examination of EMTs

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to temporary suspensions of many occupational licensing laws, especially for health care professionals, in an effort to manage surges in health care demand. The crisis highlights more general concerns about occupational licensing laws, yet convincing empirical evidence on the degree to which such laws have inhibited entry into health care professions is scarce because most studies must rely on cross-sectional variation to identify such effects. In this study, we indirectly examine how occupational licensing affects the choice to become an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) by exploiting the demand-side shock from the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although demand-side shocks should increase the likelihood of becoming an EMT relative to other similar non-medical professions, this effect should be moderated in states with higher barriers to entry. Using a large number of individuals from the American Community Survey (ACS) who work as either EMTs or in a similar non-medical field (protective services), we find suggestive evidence that while the demand-side shock from the ACA increased the likelihood of being an EMT, this effect was substantially moderated by more stringent occupational licensing laws. Although the effect for the full sample is marginally significant, the estimated effects are substantially larger for individuals under age 40, who are presumably more flexible in choosing a career path. Evaluated at the average number of days to complete EMT training and the pre-treatment uninsured rate, the implied effects for young individuals in the most careful specification suggests virtually complete offset; the ACA demand-side shock would increase entry by 18 percentage points, while occupational licensing restrictions reduce entry by a similar magnitude

SNAP Participation is Associated with Reduced Risk of Premature Mortality among U.S. Adults

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal food assistance program, with over 40 million Americans receiving its support. This research brief examines the effect of SNAP participation on the probability of premature mortality and finds that risk of premature mortality is lower among adult who receive SNAP

Self-Curated Temptation: Attention to Alternatives in the Age of Social Media

It has been debated that some people, such as those who are higher in relationship commitment, are better equipped to ignore the temptations of alternatives to their romantic partner. However, the majority of the research on this topic has focused on self-reported recall of relationship alternatives or responses to stimuli curated by others. Recent technological advances and social media present new opportunities to be exposed to tempting alternatives, as well as curate tempting online networks. Two studies tested whether differences in relationship commitment predicted whether people curate relatively more or less tempting social media content. Consistent with prior research, study 1 (N=244) found people higher in relationship commitment reported following fewer attractive alternatives on Instagram. However, people relatively high and low in commitment did not differ in the actual proportion of attractive alternatives they followed on Instagram, as coded by the researchers. Furthermore, Study 2 (N=306) showed that although people who were more committed to their relationship derogated alternatives more following relationship reminders (i.e., a mating prime), they did not pay less attention to or follow fewer new Instagram accounts than people who were less committed. Likewise, people relatively high and low in commitment did not differ across any measure in the condition without relationship reminders (i.e., control condition). Overall, these findings suggest commitment plays a role in attention to alternatives on social media when people are asked to report on their behaviors, but it does not significantly impact people’s actual behaviors on Instagram. There may be some form of cognitive protection when it comes to self-reporting about interest in alternatives, but actual social media behaviors are not allotted the same protection and can vary regardless of commitment level

Conducting Polymer Ink

Disclosed are conductive polymer inks and methods for forming the inks. The disclosed inks include a dispersion of conductive core/shell nanoparticles. The core/shell nanoparticles include a polymeric core and a shell formed of a conducting polymer. The inks can include a dispersion of the core/shell nanoparticles in a liquid carrier, such as an alcohol. The disclosed inks can be formulated to high viscosities and can be utilized in high-speed printing processes including rotogravure and flexographic printing processes. Products encompassed by the disclosure include polymer devices such as sensors, OFETs, RFID tags, printed circuit board, electrochromic devices, non-volatile memory devices, photovoltaics, and the like

Book Reviews

Book Reviews The Oppenheimer Case: The Trial of a Security System By Charles P. Curtis New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955. Pp. xi, 281. $4.00 reviewer: Ingram Bloch ============================= Trial Tactics and Methods By Robert E. Keeton New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1954. Pp. xxiv, 438.$6.65 reviewer: J. Raymond Denney ============================= Military Law under the Uniform Code of Military Justice By William B. Aycock and Seymour W. Wurfel Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Pp. xviii, 430. reviewer: James B. Earle ================================= Why Johnny Can\u27t Read By Rudolf Flesch New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Pp. ix, 222. ================================== Plain Words: Their ABC By Sir Ernest Gowers New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. Pp. viii, 298. =================================== Effective Legal Writing By Frank E. Cooper Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1953. Pp. x, 313. reviewer: J. Allen Smith ================================== The Moral Decision: Right and Wrong in the Light of American law By Edmond Cahn Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, Pp. ix, 315. $5.00 reviewer: Samuel Enoch Stump