Essays on Historical and Contemporary Occupational Licensing in the United States
2022-06
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Essays on Historical and Contemporary Occupational Licensing in the United States
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2022-06
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The theme of this dissertation is historical and contemporary occupational licensing in the United States. In Chapter 1 of my dissertation, I examine the influence of occupational licensing requirements for transportation network company drivers on quality and safety outcomes for consumers using star (quality) ratings that riders give drivers following trips and telematics data from individual trips (fraction of hard brakes and hard accelerations). More specifically, we compare safety and quality outcomes on trips performed by drivers with and without an occupational license in overlapping markets, exploiting a quasi-random assignment of trip requests to drivers. We find that occupational licensing typically does not improve safety and quality outcomes of rides. Even in those specifications where there is a positive effect of occupational licensing the magnitude of the effect is relatively small. In Chapter 2, I use newly collected data on year of initial licensure and the year key policies associated with licensing regimes were adopted from 1870-1940 to examine the effects of occupational licensing on overall, Black, and foreign-born occupation participation for five occupations (insurance agents, plumbers, barbers, real estate agents, and beauticians/manicurists). Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences estimator (DID TWFE) and event studies, I find that adopting occupational licensing had an increasingly negative effect through time on the supply of insurance agents overall and the supply of Black beauticians/manicurists, but a positive effect on the overall supply of plumbers. Mandatory qualifications were potentially associated with an increase in the overall supply of insurance agents. The creation of a distinct manicurist occupation was associated with an increase in the supply of Black beauticians/manicurists, but conversely, there is weak evidence that allowing manicuring to be performed by beauticians was associated with a reduction in the overall supply of beauticians/manicurists. In Chapter 3, I detail the historical prevalence of origins and evolution of criminal records-occupational licensing (CROL) requirements, which affect the ability of people with criminal records (PWRs) to be issued an occupational license. My research team collected data on the historical prevalence of ten broad CROL requirements, and associated sub-requirements, as well as changes in these requirements from as early as the late-19th century to 2020, for ten occupations across different industries. We also collected data for universal CROL requirements, which are requirements that apply to all occupations requiring licensure in a state. I found that broad targeted CROL requirements, such as good moral character clauses, which provide licensing authorities with broad leeway to deny licenses to PWRs, have decreased in prevalence through time. In contrast, more narrowly targeted CROL requirements, such restricting the ability of PWR convicted of offenses related the occupation, and universal limitations on the ability of licensing authorities to consider criminal records, have increased in prevalence through time.
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. 2022. Major: Public Affairs. Advisor: Morris Kleiner. 1 computer file (PDF); 276 pages.
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Hicks, Jason. (2022). Essays on Historical and Contemporary Occupational Licensing in the United States. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/241742.
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