Occupational licensing laws can allow professionals to extract rents in the marketplace. In the case of vision services, optometrists have the authority to write prescriptions for contact lenses. Optometrists may choose to conceal this information and force patients to purchase lenses from the professional writing the prescription—resulting in vendor lock-in. In this paper, we investigate the possible effect of the 2004 Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act (FCLCA) on the market for vision services by examining state differences in prescription release mandates before 2004. We find that requiring professionals to release prescription information to patients resulted in a 13% reduction in the wages of optometrists. Our results provide some evidence that the FCLCA may have increased consumer welfare by reducing the prices of contact lenses or increasing access to contact lenses.

中文翻译：

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恢复消费者的眼界和进入市场的竞争：分析所需处方发布的影响

职业许可法可以使专业人士在市场上获得租金。就视觉服务而言，验光师有权为隐形眼镜开处方。验光师可能会选择隐瞒此信息，并迫使患者从专业人士处购买处方来购买镜片，从而导致供应商锁定。在本文中，我们通过检查2004年之前处方发布授权的状态差异，研究了2004年《隐形眼镜消费者公平法》（FCLCA）对视力服务市场的可能影响。我们发现，要求专业人员向患者发布处方信息会导致使验光师的工资降低了13％。