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Teacher licensure is a regime where schools are forbidden from hiring teachers who have not completed a program of study in a teacher education program and/or other preparation requirements. This paper specifies a theoretical model of a school hiring teachers who are either traditional-completed a program of study in a teacher education program or alternative-entered teaching through an alternative path. We combine the implications of the theoretical model with the empirical literature on teacher labor markets to reach conclusions about how labor market policies would impact teacher quality. Perhaps the most important conclusion is that it is very likely that a regime of teacher licensure would lower teacher quality and student achievement. The key reason why licensure would lower teacher quality is that licensure fails to make the important distinction between marginal and average quality in hiring decisions.

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Since the advent of the file-sharing program Napster in June of 1999, copyright infringement has plagued the recorded music industry. We review the evidence on piracy and its effect on record industry profits. We then model the behavior of file sharers and music producers under different remuneration and legal regimes using a stage game. We find that under certain conditions, the removal of copyright laws for recorded music is welfare improving. There is also a parameter space where public sector music distribution combined with a tax-payer funded subsidy of music production is welfare dominant.