In the United States, one of the most common state-level occupational licensing requirements is education. Education requirements for certified public accountants (CPAs) in many states have increased over the past few decades, but recently a few states have reduced their educational requirement to sit for the CPA exam. Using data from 2006 to 2016, we separately examine the effects of relaxing or strengthening educational requirements on the number of first-time candidates sitting for the CPA exam and on candidate performance. Our results indicate that a reduction in the number of credit hours required to sit for the CPA exam increases the number of candidates, while an increase in the number of prerequisite hours reduces the number of candidates (the latter effect is sensitive to the inclusion of control variables). We also find no relationship between changes in CPA exam requirements and pass rates or scores. Hence, requiring 150 h instead of 120 acts as a barrier to entry for potential CPAs with no accompanying increase in candidate quality.

在美国，最常见的州级职业许可要求之一是教育。过去几十年来，许多州对注册会计师 (CPA) 的教育要求有所提高，但最近一些州降低了参加 CPA 考试的教育要求。使用2006年至2016年的数据，我们分别研究了放宽或加强教育要求对首次参加注册会计师考试的考生人数和考生表现的影响。我们的结果表明，减少参加注册会计师考试所需的学时数会增加考生的数量，而增加先修课时数会减少考生的数量（后者的影响对纳入控制很敏感）变量）。我们还发现注册会计师考试要求的变化与通过率或分数之间没有关系。因此，要求 150 小时而不是 120 小时会成为潜在注册会计师的进入障碍，而不会相应提高候选人的质量。