IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedmsr/103496.html

Analyzing Occupational Licensing Across Nations

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan S. Hartley

  • Morris M. Kleiner

Abstract

Relatively little is known about occupational licensing across nations. We assemble harmonized estimates of licensing prevalence for 44 countries using nationally representative surveys, including new surveys for previously unstudied countries. Licensing ranges from roughly 14 percent of workers in Denmark to more than 40 percent in India and South Africa. Licensed workers earn 6 to 19 percent higher wages than comparable unlicensed workers across specifications. Licensing prevalence is negatively associated with GDP per capita and governance quality, and positively associated with informal employment, suggesting occupational licensing is intertwined with labor market efficiency, formalization, and long-run economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan S. Hartley & Morris M. Kleiner, 2026. "Analyzing Occupational Licensing Across Nations," Staff Report 685, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:103496
    DOI: 10.21034/sr.685
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr685.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.21034/sr.685?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:103496. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.