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Title: Essays in the Consequences of Occupational Regulation

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2022

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Abstract: Occupational regulation affects many people across many aspects of life. Most anyone knows someone affected or themselves are affected by some form of occupational regulation. This dissertation research investigates the consequences of occupational regulation across three different areas of study: economic history, urban and regional economics, and health policy. The first chapter investigates the historic licensing of emigrant agents. In the period following the US Civil War, firms wished to capitalize on the availability of African American labor. To do so they hired emigrant agents, also known as labor agents, to hire and help with the migration of individuals from the South. Faced with out-migration at the hands of the labor force, some southern states licensed the profession as a substantial barrier to practice. I use linked full-count US Censuses to determine the effect that licensing emigrant agents had on the individual probability of migration both out of state, and out of the South. A difference-in-differences analysis on the border counties of North and South Carolina suggests that the licensing of emigrant agents reduced the probability of migration out of the South by more than 1 percentage point. The second chapter deals with cross-border competition and the effects of licensing massage therapists. Occupational licensing has been shown to have many pervasive economic effects. Licensing restricts competition, which causes wage premiums, potentially induces rent seeking, and ultimately results in consumers having to pay high prices through both channels of reduced supply and producers passing on increased cost of doing business. Licensing laws are passed at the state level; and thus, there can be considerable variation across states. Should there be much economic activity at state borders, this would be inconsequential. Yet, the existence of metropolitan areas spanning state borders begs the question of what effects can restricting competition be when competitive substitutes are easily available. This theory is tested using major MSAs that cross state borders and data from the American Community Survey to show how the differing licensing schemes affect the incomes of practicing massage therapists. Ultimately, it appears that the effect of easily available substitutes of massage therapists in the border state mutes the effect of the wage premium that would be caused by a more restrictive licensure scheme. Not only do wage premiums not appear in geographically adjacent states, it is especially missing in border MSAs. The third chapter is joint work with Dr. Bobby W. Chung of St. Bonaventure University and presents an analysis of the effect of expanding scope of practice for nurse practitioners. As a response to the Covid-19 Pandemic many states choose to expand nurse practitioner scope of practice. We analyze the effects of the expansion of scope of practice on daily Covid related mortality using a synthetic control design. Our results suggest that expanding scope of practice for NPs reduced daily Covid related mortality and was most effective in non-rural areas. The total effect of expanding scope of practice is a reduction of hundreds of deaths over a 30 day period compared to the synthetic control.

Url: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/11306

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Authors: Trudeau, Noah J

Institution: West Virginia University

Department: Economics

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Pages: 1-79

Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data

Topics: Health, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Other, Population Health and Health Systems

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