THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF OCCUPATIONAL LICENSURE ON AUDIOLOGISTS

The economic theory of occupational licensure advocates the position that licensing of professionals has become an effective device for promoting monopoly. By imposng restrictions at the entry level, the supply of professionals into an occupation can be effectively checked and controlled. Furthermore, it is argued that behavioral and mobility restrictions are also used to control the supply of professionals. Given these restrictions, conventional microeconomic theory predicts a price-increasing, quantity-decreasing impact from professional licensure and an unforeseeable impact on the quality of services. Viewing the predictions of the theory of licensure as overwhelmingly conclusive many economists call for the total eradication of licensing. Warning against generalization, moderate economists call for a case-by-case, empirical investigation of the economic impact of licensing on different occupations. This dissertation is an attempt to empirically evaluate the economic impact of the licensing of audiologists. The introductory chapter contains an overview of the entire study. In the second chapter, a brief history and current status of licensure in the United States are presented. The third chapter is a review of the literature on occupational licensing. Chapters Four and Five contain the body of the empirical investigation of the licensing of audiologists. Specifically, five hypotheses are formalized and statistically tested. The first two hypotheses use non-aggregated primary data to test the relationships between income, supply, and the mobility of audiologists in eighteen licensed and fifteen non-licensed states. The remaining hypotheses use aggregated data to examine the impact of the stringency of licensing requirements on the supply, examination pass-rate, and quality of the services of audiologists in thirty licensed states. Finally, Chapter Six contains conclusions and suggestions for future research. Since the statistical results lend no support to the hypotheses, it is concluded that licensing arrangements have not influenced the audiology profession. As with many other occupations, economic rewards are distributed among audiologists according to sex, the level of education, the place of employment, and the years of professional experience