In the excerpts, “entry barriers” denotes restrictions that limit who may compete in a market. Clifford Winston, described by Bob Zadek as a microeconomist, treats occupational licensing as the form entry barriers take in the legal profession, while Jason Sorens treats entry barriers as one among several measures of state economic policy. The two treatments differ in method: Winston examines a single profession through the lens of microeconomics, whereas Sorens places entry barriers in an index comparing states.
Microeconomics and the study of the legal profession
Bob Zadek asked Winston to explain how microeconomics differs from macroeconomics. Winston answered that microeconomists focus on specific markets and industries and the policy issues relating to them, while macroeconomists largely focus on the overall economy and federal policy. Winston said he began his career studying transportation industries during their transition to deregulation, examining airlines, railroads and trucking, and that he learned initial perspectives on what would happen were not quite right and required a long-run view. He then turned to the legal profession, describing it as an industry subject to entry barriers in the form of occupational licensing, and proceeded to study it Trouble at the Bar (2021).
Licensing, quality and cost
Winston said the licensing, bar exams and accredited law school requirement had the good intention of making sure there were quality lawyers, because laypeople could not distinguish a good lawyer from a bad one and might be deceived. He framed the underlying question as maximizing the net benefits to American society that the legal profession provides. He said the entry barriers did very little to improve the quality of legal services and had considerable costs. The initial cost, he said, is raising the price of the service, because not everyone who wants to compete can get in, and in particular the lowest-cost innovative suppliers cannot. He said prices for legal services are high and access is much lower, and that despite the view that there are too many lawyers, there are not enough lawyers Trouble at the Bar (2021).
Winston identified a further consequence as the most important part of the analysis: the entry barriers have siloed lawyers, isolating them through a particular training and exposure among other lawyers, so that they do not engage sufficiently with other disciplines, certainly economics but others as well. He said this affects lawyers in their positions in making policy, both in courts and in government, and called the legal profession’s engagement with other disciplines and the efficacy of its policymaking an unappreciated byproduct of the entry barriers and restrictions on practicing law Trouble at the Bar (2021).
Entry barriers and state political economy
In a discussion of a book of tables ranking the states, Bob Zadek asked about the politics of states that do poorly on fiscal policy, naming New York and California as at the bottom. Jason Sorens answered that some voters are willing to pay higher taxes for more public services and vote for politicians who want that, and that states voting for the Democratic Party at state elections tend to have less economic freedom, with changes in voting causing changes in economic freedom. He cited West Virginia’s shift from strongly Democratic to strongly Republican and said the state had increased quite a bit on economic freedom, something he said had been predicted in an earlier edition Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022).
Sorens said there is also a residual that might be called cronyism or even corruption: some states are systematically more likely to waste tax dollars or give them to private companies as subsidies. He said these tend to be states with more economic regulations on starting a business or entering a profession, and that entry barriers reducing competition in the marketplace also seem to be a special interest giveaway. He said such states have higher lobbyist-to-legislator ratios, more corruption convictions, and are rated by state journalists as more corrupt. He added that this is not the main thing going on, that the United States is less corrupt than places where bribery is a way of doing business, but that some corruption and special interest influence drives taxes up, because money must be spent to buy off those special interests as well as to provide basic public services Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022).
Across episodes: two treatments of one concept
The excerpts show the same concept handled in two registers rather than a developing argument. In the earlier episode, Winston, a microeconomist, analyzes occupational licensing in one profession and traces its effects on price, access and the isolation of lawyers from other disciplines. In the later episode, Sorens, discussing a state freedom index, treats entry barriers as a marker of special interest influence alongside subsidies, lobbying ratios and corruption convictions. Neither speaker responds to the other, and the excerpts show no change in the treatment of the topic between the two.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the name of any licensing statute, bar rule or court decision, nor any amendment or holding on which a case turned. They give no figures for the price or quantity effects of licensing, and no state-by-state entry-barrier scores. Winston’s account of the legal profession’s history and Sorens’s index methodology are both cut off before the excerpts reach them.