Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Peter Jacobsen
“Advocates of occupational licensing often make their case on the grounds of safety. It’s certainly theoretically true that licensing can help screen out practitioners lacking the adequate knowledge or experience. However, there is no such thing as ‘free’ safety. In the words of Thomas Sowell, ‘There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.’ Using licensure to filter out incompetent practitioners also increases the cost for competent ones. When you increase the cost of something, economics teaches us that you get less of it. Strict, state-specific licensure requirements make it expensive for doctors to move, even when demand for care increases in a particular state. Even if safety improves marginally, it may come at the cost of decreasing the number of available physicians.” (08/17/25)