Universal Occupational License Recognition and Interstate Migration: Evidence from State Policy Reforms

Abstract

Universal License Recognition (ULR) laws allow workers licensed in one state to practice in adopting states without re-licensure. Starting with Arizona in 2019, seven states enacted ULR laws by 2021. We use a difference-in-differences design with Census PUMS microdata to estimate the effect of ULR on interstate migration among workers in licensed occupations. We find that migration rates increased in ULR states by 0.23 percentage points for licensed workers (t=3.55). However, unlicensed workers in the same states experienced a nearly identical increase (0.25 pp), yielding a triple-difference estimate of essentially zero (-0.02 pp). This null finding suggests that the observed migration increase in ULR states is not attributable to license portability specifically, but rather to other factors driving migration to these fast-growing states. Our results have important implications for evaluating occupational licensing reform and suggest that license portability may be less binding than commonly assumed.