The Effects of Regulating Overlapping Occupations: An Analysis for Opticians and Optometrists

Licensed occupations can be both complements to and substitutes for one another in providing a service, and the extent as of who can do what tasks, which is the so called “scope of practice”, is determined by government regulations. In this paper, the author examines two similar occupations of opticians and optometrists, who are licensed in most of the states in the United States and provide complementary services to patients and sometimes can serve as substitutes as services providers. The paper primarily focuses on how the interactions between these two occupations can affect the labor market; to be more specific, how would the supervision of optometrists on opticians’ activities can yield impact on wage determination and employment outcomes for the practitioners.