The Effects of Occupational Licensing on Wages and Employment, 2014-2019

This study updates and replicates the findings of Gittleman, Kleiner, and Klee (2017) that those with occupational licenses have higher wages and lower unemployment rates. The update is motivated by the changes that have occurred in licensing policy and the American economy between Gittleman et al.'s primary reference year of 2012 and this study's final reference year of 2019. This study also includes an original time series analysis of the effects of occupational licensure on wages and employment between 2014 and 2019. I consistently replicate Gittleman
et al.'s results on the impact of licensure on wages and find that the wage premium associated with licensure decreased by 6.6% between December 2016 and December 2019. I do not find a significant impact of licensure on the likelihood of employment beyond the simplest model and do not identify a time trend across these results.