This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 12th, 2017.

I'm Kibba Brown.

When Detroit wanted to go after entrepreneurs operating without licenses, the city got some quick cash, but it also

forced hundreds of businesses out of the market or into the black market.

Jarrett Scoraup of the Mackinac Center discussed a better way to decide what ought to be licensed.

We spoke at the State Policy Network annual meeting in San Antonio.

For states that have dealt with this, the scourge, the growing scourge of occupational licenses for

occupations that should not have any licensure or registration requirements whatsoever.

The battle has been about picking a license, finding the research that points to why that license is pointless and then presenting that research to either state lawmakers or people who are charged with making determinations about licenses and saying,

well, you should get rid of this license. And that is an extremely laborious process.

The burden seems to be on the wrong side of the equation.

It should be the government having to defend constantly the fact that these licenses make

sense.

So how do we get from here to there in terms of doing a

global look at how we get rid of or how we evaluate the quality and the benefit of licensure.

Yeah, I think that's the great pointer.

You know, on the intellectual side of things, we call it the public choice problem or the

regulatory capture problem problem which is you just have these

industry groups that have way more of an interest, these concentrated benefits and coming

and lobbying for licenses.

And what I found on doing this is very few people,

even educated, involved, people who follow all kinds of things.

...