Morris Kleiner is identified in The Bob Zadek Show excerpts as a professor at the University of Minnesota and the author, with a co-author, of a study quantifying the economic costs of occupational licensing. He is not presented as a guest in the excerpts below; he appears as a cited researcher whose work is summarized by Dick Carpenter, and he is mentioned by Bob Zadek as a past guest on the subject of licensing occupations.
Mention as a prior guest
In a January 2019 episode on media malpractice and tribalism, Bob Zadek recalled a show broadcast the previous Sunday on the licensing of occupations. Zadek said he did not remember his guest, Morris Kleiner, mentioning that being a professional contrarian required 300 hours of training and passing a licensing exam. The remark was addressed to Robbie Soave, the episode’s guest, and was framed as a joke about whether contrarianism should be licensed. The excerpt establishes only that Zadek treated Kleiner as the guest on an earlier licensing episode; it does not describe that episode’s content. On Crowds and Tribalism (2019)
The cost study cited by Dick Carpenter
In a November 2022 episode, Dick Carpenter told Bob Zadek that he and his organization had released a study several years earlier by Morris Kleiner, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and his co-author, examining the quantitative economic costs of occupational licensing. Carpenter distinguished those quantifiable costs from other costs that are harder to quantify but still borne by consumers individually. New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022)
Carpenter described the study’s method as looking at costs state by state and then combining across all the states to produce national figures. He said the researchers looked at states that had good data available, and that in about 36 states the lost economic output ranged from about $28 million in Rhode Island to $840 million in California. Nationally, Carpenter said, licensing costs the economy somewhere between $6.2 and $7 billion in lost output. He called this a drag on the economy created by licensing. New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022)
A second measure Carpenter attributed to the study was misallocation. He explained the idea as follows: the United States has a pool of labor, millions of people who want to work with certain skills and interests, and absent licensing they would select into occupations based on those skills and interests; a license distorts that selection and misallocates labor, forcing people into work not as well tailored to their skills or interests. Carpenter said the misallocation cost was anywhere from $675 million in Rhode Island to $22 billion in California, and nationally between $184 and $197 billion. He described these as annual numbers and called the costs from licensing staggering to the economy. New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022)
The Cadillac effect and the consumer argument
The same November 2022 episode contains a second, near-identical rendering of Carpenter’s discussion, in which he again attributes the study to Morris Kleiner of the University of Minnesota and his co-author, and repeats the state-by-state and national figures. In this version Carpenter says the lost economic output ranged anywhere from about $28 million in Rhode Island to $840 million in California, and that nationally licensing costs the economy somewhere between $6.2 and $7 billion. He again gives the misallocation range as $675 million in Rhode Island to $22 billion in California, with a national figure between $184 and $197 billion. The Presumption of Liberty & Occupational Licensing (2022)
In both renderings, the Kleiner study is embedded in a broader argument Carpenter makes about what Milton Friedman called a “Cadillac effect”: licensing forces every consumer to buy a Cadillac in a licensed occupation, preventing consumers from choosing a lower tier of service and disproportionately affecting those who cannot afford the licensed price. Carpenter also cited a classic study from about 40 years earlier finding that licensing increases threats to public health and safety because people who cannot afford to hire a licensed provider do the work themselves, such as electrical work, and harm themselves. He attributed neither the Cadillac phrase nor the older study to Kleiner. New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022)
Bob Zadek’s framing in the same episode was that the study might become admissible evidence for striking down state licensing statutes one at a time, removing any presumption that government can accomplish an appropriate governmental purpose through licensing. Zadek said he wanted to examine the economic harm to individuals denied permission to earn a living, and asked Carpenter to address the infringement on the freedom of the rest of society to hire whom they want. These are Zadek’s arguments, not Kleiner’s. New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022)
Across episodes
Two episodes touch on Morris Kleiner. The January 2019 episode mentions him only in passing, as the guest on an earlier show about licensing occupations. The two November 2022 episodes present him through Dick Carpenter’s summary of a cost study, with the same figures repeated in both. The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Kleiner between the earlier and later episodes; the later episodes do not revisit or revise the earlier mention, and the earlier mention supplies no substance about his work.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Kleiner’s full title, his department, or any biographical detail beyond his identification as a professor at the University of Minnesota. They do not name the study, its publication venue, its date, or the co-author. They do not indicate whether Kleiner appeared as a guest on the November 2022 episodes, and they do not describe the content of the earlier licensing episode in which Zadek says Kleiner was his guest.