621. Is Professional Licensing a Racket?
Licensing began with medicine and law; now it extends to 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, including hair stylists and auctioneers. In a new book, the legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public.
Episode 621 of the Freakonomics Radio podcast, hosted by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher, titled "621. Is Professional Licensing a Racket?" was published on February 7, 2025 and runs 55 minutes.
February 7, 2025 ·55m · Freakonomics Radio
Summary
Licensing began with medicine and law; now it extends to 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, including hair stylists and auctioneers. In a new book, the legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public.
Episode Description
Licensing began with medicine and law; now it extends to 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, including hair stylists and auctioneers. In a new book, the legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public.
- SOURCES:
- Rebecca Allensworth, professor of law at Vanderbilt University.
- RESOURCES:
- "The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who Is Allowed to Work, and Why It Goes Wrong" by Rebecca Allensworth (2025).
- "Licensed to Pill," by Rebecca Allensworth (The New York Review of Books, 2020).
- "Licensing Occupations: Ensuring Quality or Restricting Competition?" by Morris Kleiner (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2006).
- "How Much of Barrier to Entry is Occupational Licensing?" by Peter Blair and Bobby Chung (British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2019).
- EXTRAS:
- "Is Ozempic as Magical as It Sounds?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
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