Licensing One of the World's Oldest Professions: Massage

Robert Thornton and Edward Timmons

Journal of Law and Economics, 2013, vol. 56, issue 2, 371 - 388

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the development of occupational regulation of massage therapists in the United States as well as the effects of state licensing and certification on their earnings and numbers. Our results suggest that massage therapists working in states with licensing receive an earnings premium of as much as 16.2 percent. We also find some evidence that licensing seems to reduce the number of massage therapists. We find less convincing evidence that certification has had similar effects. We argue that, taken together, our results suggest that licensing restricts entry at the expense of consumers and that its effects are less likely to be explained by other competing factors.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/667840 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/667840 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/667840

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Law and Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().