Workshop’s Topic: Occupational licensure is a much-discussed policy issue. Most analysts assume that, because licensure increases barriers to entry into an occupation, it also depresses entrepreneurship, especially so for disadvantaged workers like racial minorities. We argue that licensure offers a signal of quality and legitimacy to producers. We further argue that customers discount services rendered by minority practitioners more in the absence of licensure. Therefore, the relationship between licensure and entrepreneurship can be positive, especially for disadvantaged groups. Using data on the population of tax preparers in the U.S. from 2015 to 2017, we test whether state-level licensure is associated with lower rates of entry into tax preparation but also higher rates of entrepreneurship. We show that the effects vary by the average quality of the market. Our findings suggest that licensure offers nascent entrepreneurs a signal of quality and legitimacy that may reduce customer discrimination against minority producers.
Time and Location: 10:00-11:30 AM (GMT+8), Room A723 (School of Management)
Language: English
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Introduction of Speakers |
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Assoc. Prof. Roman Galperin McGill University |
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Roman Galperin is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior. He studies how signals and perceptions of competence and expertise influence markets for professional services, shape hiring, knowledge exchange and learning in organizations, and affect careers of knowledge workers. He earned his PhD in management at MIT Sloan School of Management and have previously taught at Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, where he received a prestigious Discovery Award for joint work with the Dept. of Neuroscience. Prior to joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins, professor Galperin was an NSF-ASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University and an Edward J. Safra Network Fellow at Harvard University. Galperin also served as a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2013 to 2016. |
