From Certification To Licensure: Evidence From Registered And Practical Nurses In The United States, 1950-1970

Marc Law and Mindy Marks

European Journal of Comparative Economics, 2013, vol. 10, issue 2, 177-198

Abstract: In this paper we use individual-level census data on registered and practical nurses in the United States from 1950-70 to determine the effect that the switch from certification to licensure had on wages and participation in the registered and practical nurse professions. We examine these occupations to take advantage of a quasi-experiment afforded by the fact that, by the beginning of our sample, all states already had certification in place and some states already required a license. During the subsequent decade several states switched from certification to a mandatory licensing regime while others did not. Accordingly, we infer the effect of licensure in a differences-in-differences framework that uses states that did not change their regulatory regime as a control. Interestingly, we find that the shift from certification to mandatory licensing had little to no effect on the wages or the participation rate of practical and registered nurses.

Keywords: occupational licensing; regulation; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 J44 J88 K2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:liu:liucej:v:10:y:2013:i:2:p:177-198

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