The Registrar is on site in Wellington, New Zealand, covering key highlights and insights from CLEAR’s 8th International Congress on Professional and Occupational Regulation.
At CLEAR’s International Congress, Kevin Counsell, Chief Economist at New Zealand’s Ministry for Regulation, offered a clear and pragmatic examination of how economic thinking can strengthen occupational regulation.
Counsell began by outlining the core concepts economists use to assess regulatory systems. These include trade-offs, opportunity costs, marginal thinking, incentives, and counterfactuals. These tools help regulators move beyond assumptions and examine whether interventions truly improve public outcomes.
Markets, when competitive and well informed, often produce the win-win outcomes that society values. These include lower prices, innovation, and improved quality. When markets fail because of weak competition, information imbalances, or spillover harms, regulators may need to intervene.
In occupational regulation, the most significant market failure is information asymmetry. Professionals often know far more about the quality of their services than the public. This creates risks that are difficult for consumers to detect or manage. Counsell described a range of regulatory tools, from disclosure and registration to certification and licensing. More restrictive models should be reserved for situations where risks are significant and cannot be addressed through market-based or lower-cost mechanisms.
Counsell pointed to evidence showing that regulated professions often receive wage premiums because barriers to entry reduce labour supply. “You can see the benefits of regulation, but you also need to understand the costs,” he said.
He closed with a reminder of the value of cost-benefit analysis. Effective occupational regulation depends on understanding incentives, identifying risks, and selecting interventions that deliver net benefits for society. Better regulation and better outcomes require the disciplined work of weighing evidence and balancing these trade-offs.
8th International Congress on Professional and Occupational Regulation
Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation (CLEAR)
Congress Presenter: Kevin Counsell Chief Economist, Ministry for Regulation, New Zealand
