Year of Publication

2020

College

Martin School of Public Policy and Administration

Degree Name

Master of Public Policy

Committee Chair

Dr. Rajeev Darolia

Executive Summary

A growing body of literature suggests that occupational licensing distorts economic behavior through various mechanisms, such as inflating prices and inhibiting interstate mobility. To combat some of these ill-effects, policymakers have turned to interstate compacts as a way to promote uniformity in licensing requirements across states and facilitate license portability. Despite the development of interstate compacts for numerous licensed occupations and professions, evidence of their efficacy in the literature is thin. Based on data from over 70,000 physicians from 2012 to 2018, I construct a difference-in-differences model to estimate the effects of the adoption of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC) on labor supply and interstate mobility. The results suggest that labor supply and migration/commuting did not significantly change following IMLC adoption.

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