The Effect of Occupational Licensing on Consumer Welfare: Early Midwifery Laws and Maternal Mortality

D. Mark Anderson (), Ryan Brown, Kerwin Kofi Charles () and Daniel I. Rees ()
Additional contact information
D. Mark Anderson: Montana State University
Kerwin Kofi Charles: Yale University
Daniel I. Rees: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

No 10074, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Occupational licensing is intended to protect consumers. Whether it does so is an important, but unanswered, question. Exploiting variation across states and municipalities in the timing and details of midwifery laws introduced during the period 1900-1940, and using a rich data set that we assembled from primary sources, we find that requiring midwives to be licensed reduced maternal mortality by 6 to 7 percent. In addition, we find that requiring midwives to be licensed may have had led to modest reductions in nonwhite infant mortality and mortality among children under the age of 2 from diarrhea. These estimates provide the first econometric evidence of which we are aware on the relationship between licensure and consumer safety, and are directly relevant to ongoing policy debates both in the United States and in the developing world surrounding the merits of licensing midwives.

Keywords: maternal mortality; midwives; occupational licensing; infant mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J08 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-hea, nep-his and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Published - published as ' Occupational Licensing and Maternal Health: Evidence from Early Midwifery Laws' in: Journal of Political Economy, 2020, 128, 4337-4383.

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Working Paper: The Effect of Occupational Licensing on Consumer Welfare: Early Midwifery Laws and Maternal Mortality (2016)
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