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Occupational Licensing Reduces Consumer Benefits from Online Platforms
“The share of U.S. workers required to hold an occupational license has exploded from around 5% in 1950 to 25% in 2020,” writes Reason Foundation’s Vittorio Nastasi. Occupational licensing has a documented history of limiting competition and stifling innovation while making certain classes of professionals into protected classes. Nastasi reviews recent literature pointing to yet another negative impact of occupational licensing: making it harder to use the online platforms that rate home improvement contractors. Using data from the popular home improvement site Angi’s HomeAdvisor, a Harvard researcher estimated that a recent New
