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I want to add a quick comment about occupational licensing that I wonder is take into account by economists.
Many professions which require occupational licensing can be done virtually, meaning they are not limited by geography or proximity. That's certainly the case for many Professional Engineers (my own profession) but could apply to doctors, lawyers, mortgage brokers, etc.
With the current corporate culture of outsourcing, what prevents a firm from outsourcing their work to someone in India getting paid extremely low wages who has no cultural or ethnic connection to the people or community they are serving? This may lead to harms and poor outcomes. This appears to be the case with the recent debacle concerning Boeing and the 737 Max.
I'm inclined to think that some form of occupational licensing helps when it pushes people outside of the local or national culture and history from participating in that occupation.
This is a great comment and a great point. I actually agree with you more or less across the board, and the Boeing example is a good one. However, I don't think the occupational license in and of itself is the way to solve that problem. The market will punish these poor performers eventually (if the state would stop continuously bailing them out that is, at least in the case of Boeing) and I would argue the firms that do what you're describing absolutely will not be competitive on the market in the long run. I have a friend who works in consulting who has seen the damage that type of outsourcing does firsthand, and the same goes for friends also in the tech industry who have seen the output of outsourced software dev farms. Everyone knows American engineers, both software and otherwise, are far better. In an unlicensed world, the relative value of competency tests market participants generate will also go way up--assuming those also aren't illegal as many competency tests are now...
Great comment, and thank you for the insight! You're right that outsourcing of technical talent is a genuine problem in terms of both quality of output and the impact on domestic labor supply.
Great points. I wonder too how much damage it can cause to local providers. If a whole bunch of firms outsource their work to low-wage countries, the local people will be unable to compete and will suffer tremendously. Yes, in the long-term things will sort out, but what is a man who previously worked as an engineer supposed to do when all the jobs are gone or inaccessible to him?
It can have damaging outcomes not only to those individuals and the markrt but also to the local culture. You essentially have many high IQ people who are unable to contribute anymore.
I don't know what the protection is against that and I'm not sure how one can measure and test those results. I'd be interested to know if there's any research on that.
I want to add a quick comment about occupational licensing that I wonder is take into account by economists.
Many professions which require occupational licensing can be done virtually, meaning they are not limited by geography or proximity. That's certainly the case for many Professional Engineers (my own profession) but could apply to doctors, lawyers, mortgage brokers, etc.
With the current corporate culture of outsourcing, what prevents a firm from outsourcing their work to someone in India getting paid extremely low wages who has no cultural or ethnic connection to the people or community they are serving? This may lead to harms and poor outcomes. This appears to be the case with the recent debacle concerning Boeing and the 737 Max.
I'm inclined to think that some form of occupational licensing helps when it pushes people outside of the local or national culture and history from participating in that occupation.
This is a great comment and a great point. I actually agree with you more or less across the board, and the Boeing example is a good one. However, I don't think the occupational license in and of itself is the way to solve that problem. The market will punish these poor performers eventually (if the state would stop continuously bailing them out that is, at least in the case of Boeing) and I would argue the firms that do what you're describing absolutely will not be competitive on the market in the long run. I have a friend who works in consulting who has seen the damage that type of outsourcing does firsthand, and the same goes for friends also in the tech industry who have seen the output of outsourced software dev farms. Everyone knows American engineers, both software and otherwise, are far better. In an unlicensed world, the relative value of competency tests market participants generate will also go way up--assuming those also aren't illegal as many competency tests are now...
Great comment, and thank you for the insight! You're right that outsourcing of technical talent is a genuine problem in terms of both quality of output and the impact on domestic labor supply.
Great points. I wonder too how much damage it can cause to local providers. If a whole bunch of firms outsource their work to low-wage countries, the local people will be unable to compete and will suffer tremendously. Yes, in the long-term things will sort out, but what is a man who previously worked as an engineer supposed to do when all the jobs are gone or inaccessible to him?
It can have damaging outcomes not only to those individuals and the markrt but also to the local culture. You essentially have many high IQ people who are unable to contribute anymore.
I don't know what the protection is against that and I'm not sure how one can measure and test those results. I'd be interested to know if there's any research on that.