Does occupational licensing impact incomes? A replication study for the German crafts case

Kaja Fredriksen ()
Additional contact information
Kaja Fredriksen: Institute for Small Business Economics (ifh Göttingen)

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2020, vol. 54, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract Large variation in the estimated income premium of occupational licensing can be found in the existing literature. I revisit the natural experimental design of a change in the German crafts regulation in 2004, which removed the traditional licensing requirement for self-employment in certain trades, using official survey data and difference-in-differences estimation. Previous studies of this deregulation have found significant, yet small effects on the incomes of employees in deregulated trades. I focus on the incomes of the self-employed and find no robust effects. Multiple channels through which occupational licensing may affect incomes such as price and quality competition in the regulated market and possible competitive pressure from outsiders are identified, which may also explain why the effects of occupational licensing on incomes appear to be context-specific.

Keywords: Labor markets; Occupational licensing; Monopoly rent; Natural experiment; Craftsmanship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 I39 J24 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s12651-020-00269-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:54:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-020-00269-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12651

DOI: 10.1186/s12651-020-00269-7

Access Statistics for this article

Journal for Labour Market Research is currently edited by Joachim Möller

More articles in Journal for Labour Market Research from Springer, Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().