Does Occupational Licensing Reduce Job Loss During Recessions? / Peter Q. Blair, Bobby W. Chung.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blair, Peter Q.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Chung, Bobby W.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w32486.

NBER working paper series no. w32486

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2024.

Summary:

Licensed workers could be shielded from unemployment during recession since occupational licensing laws are asymmetric--making unlicensed workers an illegal substitute for licensed workers but not the reverse. We test our hypothesis using a difference-in-differences event study research design that exploits cross-state variation in licensing laws to compare the unemployment rate between licensed and unlicensed workers before and after the COVID-19 recession and the Great Recession. Controlling for worker ability, we find that licensing shields workers from a recession-induced increase in the unemployment rate of 0.82 p.p. during COVID-19 and 1.11 p.p. during the Great Recession.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2024.