Doctors Without Borders: The Returns to an Occupational License for Soviet Immigrant Physicians in Israel

Arbeitspapier

Re-licensing requirements for professionals that move across borders are widespread. In this paper, we measure the returns to an occupational license using novel data on Soviet trained physicians that immigrated to Israel. An immigrant re-training assignment rule used by the Israel Ministry of Health provides an exogenous source of variation in re-licensing outcomes. Instrumental variables and quantile treatment effects estimates of the returns to an occupational license indicate excess wages due to occupational entry restrictions and negative selection into licensing status. We develop a model of optimal license acquisition which suggests that the wages of high-skilled immigrant physicians in the nonphysician sector outweigh the lower direct costs that these immigrants face in acquiring a medical license. Licensing thus leads to lower average quality of service. However, the positive earnings effect of entry restrictions far outweighs the lower practitioner quality earnings effect that licensing induces.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 634

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Value of Life; Forgone Income ; Rationing; Licensing ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion ; Economics of Regulation ; Information and Product Quality; Standardization and Compatibility
• Subject: licensing ; occupational mobility ; regulation ; information and product quality ; immigration ; Migranten ; Ärzte ; Arbeitsmarkt ; Berufsrecht ; Bildungsertrag ; Israel ; Sowjetunion

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kugler, Adriana D. ; Sauer, Robert M.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2002

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20974
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET