Conspiracy Against The Public? Occupational Regulation in the UK Economy
Conspiracy Against The Public? Occupational Regulation in the UK Economy
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针对公众的阴谋？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
J. Shackleton
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. Shackleton
20%的英国雇员需要政府颁发执照才能从事他们选择的职业。这一比例在过去15年中翻了一番。另有20%的工人获得了政府机构的认证，而这种认证通常是就业所必需的。职业监管通常是合理的，因为需要保护不知情的公众免受不称职或不道德的从业人员的影响。然而，随着消费者信息的迅速扩大，监管也有所加强，而且有了确保质量和物有所值的新方法。支持政府参与的另一个理由是，在提供技能方面存在市场失灵，导致生产率下降。但加强监管并没有取得多大成效，而且还有其他方法可以促进技能获取。监管和发牌有时是对突发问题的下意识反应，而不是经过深思熟虑的政策，而职业组织本身往往是监管的推动者，作为阻止竞争的一种手段。传统上，职业监管对医学和法律等需要多年学习的职业来说是最有力的。但新技术正在削弱专业从业者的排他性的传统论点。来自不同国家的证据表明，职业许可提高了大多数受监管职业的工资水平，减少了就业，对提高质量几乎没有帮助。进入职业的限制性障碍阻碍了一些弱势群体获得收入更高的工作，并减少了社会流动性。需要对职业许可的有效性进行彻底审查。这样的审查一般应该减少政府的干预，但在仍然需要一些干预的情况下，注册往往优于许可，认证优于注册，私人认可优于国家认证。雇主和消费者应该承担更多的责任来决定合适的工作资格，而外部监管机构应该承担更少的责任，因为它们有自己的议程。
20% of UK employees require a licence from government to practice their chosen occupation. This proportion has doubled in the last fifteen years. A further 20% of workers are certified by government agencies, and such certification is often necessary for employment. Occupational regulation is usually justified by the need to protect an uninformed public from incompetent or unscrupulous practitioners. However, regulation has increased when consumer information has been expanding rapidly, and there are new ways of ensuring quality and value for money. Another argument for government involvement is that there is a market failure in the provision of skills, which leads to lower productivity. But increased regulation has not achieved much, and there are other ways to promote skill acquisition. Regulation and licensing is sometimes a knee-jerk response to a sudden problem, rather than a thought-through policy, and often occupational organisations themselves are the driving force for regulation as a means of keeping out competition. The case for occupational regulation has traditionally been strongest for professions, such as medicine and the law, which require many years of study. But new technology is undermining the traditional arguments for exclusivity for professional practitioners. Evidence from various countries suggests that occupational licensing raises pay levels for most regulated occupations, reduces employment and does little to raise quality. Restrictive barriers to entry to occupations block off better-paid work from some disadvantaged groups and reduce social mobility. A thorough review of the effectiveness of occupational licensing is needed. Such a review should reduce government intervention generally, but where some intervention is still required, registration is often preferable to licensing, certification to registration, and private accreditation to state certification. More onus should be placed on employers and consumers to decide on suitable qualifications for a job, and less on external regulatory bodies which have agendas of their own.