Regulation of Professions in the Us and Europe : A Comparative Analysis

In this paper is analyzed the regulation of access to and activity of certain professions, namely of lawyers and physicians. A quick review of the economic theory of regulation of professions, namely (a) Why regulate, (b) How to regulate, and (c) What to regulate is presented. We suggest a set of indicators to measure the quality of regulatory restrictions (hence exposing comparative inefficiencies) in professional activities. We conclude that generally speaking the US followed by Norway, the UK [England and Wales] and Belgium perform better in terms of efficient regulation, whereas Germany, Austria and Portugal perform badly for both legal and medical professionals. Other countries (including the Netherlands, Spain, France) vary. Our results are somehow consistent with previous reports