Research

Working Papers

Licensing Barriers to Interstate Mobility: Evidence from Travel Nurses (Job Market Paper)
Paper (PDF)

Occupational licensing is widespread in the United States, yet little is known about how differences in state licensing requirements affect workers’ interstate mobility. This paper quantifies the effects of interstate licensing barriers on nursing labor markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using novel travel nurse application data from Wanderly, I first exploit variation in Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) participation and emergency waivers in a difference-in-differences framework. Although non-NLC states saw relative increases in applications during parts of the emergency, they consistently received fewer applications per COVID-19 case than NLC states, indicating lower applicant supply relative to need. To quantify the role of licensing barriers in these trends, I next estimate a model of travel nurse applications and wage posting. The model identifies their effect using differences in nurses’ licensing access to the same county and changes in barriers during emergency waivers. The results show that licensing barriers substantially deter applications. Nurses require a compensating wage differential of 67–80% to apply where they lack a license – five to seven times the premium needed to apply twice as far from home. Emergency waivers reduced the licensing penalty only gradually. Counterfactual estimates show that entering the pandemic without these barriers would have halved the non-NLC versus NLC gap in applications per COVID-19 case and redirected travel nurses toward non-NLC states when they faced the greatest COVID-19 burden.

The Mortality Effects of Interstate Licensing Barriers to Mobility: Evidence from Nurse Licensure Compact

Public health emergencies create urgent demand for nurses, but state licensing requirements can impede their movement across state lines. This paper examines whether these barriers raised mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. I exploit cross-state variation in membership in the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC), which lets nurses practice across member states with a single license, together with the emergency waivers that temporarily suspended licensing requirements from March 2020. Using county-level mortality data from the CDC, I compare neighboring counties across NLC and non-NLC state borders in a boundary discontinuity design. In the first half of 2020, deaths per capita in non-NLC counties rose by 6% relative to their NLC neighbors, equivalent to about 14 additional deaths per 100,000 residents. The gap closed in the second half of 2020. These findings are consistent with a delayed response to emergency waivers and suggest that lags in nurse reallocation can have substantial mortality consequences during public health emergencies.

Work in Progress

Universal Vouchers and the Composition of Public School Exits: Evidence from Arizona
with Esteban Aucejo and Alex Toy

In 2022, Arizona became the first state to make its Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program available to every K–12 student. Using administrative records on all Arizona public school students from 2016 to 2023, we examine who used an ESA during the first year of universal eligibility and whether the expansion changed who left the public school system. Students receiving special education services had a take-up rate of 3.2%, more than twice the overall rate of 1.5%. Among racial and ethnic groups, White students had the highest take-up. To separate changes in selection from preexisting patterns, we compare students leaving public schools before COVID-19, during the pandemic, and after the expansion. Students receiving special education services stand out: they were already more likely to leave, and this gap doubled after the expansion.

The Impact of School Quality Grades on Student Transfers and Universal Voucher Uptake
with Esteban Aucejo and Alex Toy

Arizona assigns every public school an A–F grade and, since 2022, has made public funding available to all families seeking alternatives outside the public school system. We examine how these grades affect students’ decisions to leave public schools and whether the universal expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program changed this response. Using administrative data on all Arizona public school students from 2016 to 2023, we employ a regression discontinuity design comparing schools just above and below the letter-grade cutoffs. Before COVID-19, schools narrowly receiving a higher grade had an exit rate 0.5 percentage points lower than those narrowly receiving a lower grade, relative to an average of 8.3%. Preliminary results suggest that this gap disappeared during the pandemic and remained absent after the ESA expansion.