Occupational regulations are a central institutional feature of the health sector. Physicians are universally required to hold a license, and more than 76% of non-physician health care workers also require a license. Licensing regulations are much less prevalent in the overall economy where only about 29% of workers hold jobs that require a license (Kleiner and Park, 2010).In the health sector, workers also face regulations that determine their scope of practice, supervision requirements, and collaborative practice obligations. The papers in this panel are concerned with how occupational regulations may affect the well-being of workers inside and outside the regulated professions, the cost and quality of health care, and the way that health services are organized and provided in the United States. One important theme in the panel involves the extent to which occupational regulations affect the flexibility of the health economy. For example, the panel will consider how regulations affect the flow of nurses across geographic markets with more or less demand for nursing services, and how regulations affect the range of ways that people can receive high quality health services. Another important theme in the panel is how licensing regulations may affect broader social objectives such as the welfare of different groups of workers and consumers, population health (McConeghy and Wing), the demographic composition of the health workforce, and the structure of wages in the health care occupations. A third theme in the panel is how the effects of occupational regulation may differ in the short run and the long run.