Display Settings:

Format

Send to:

Choose Destination
We are sorry, but NCBI web applications do not support your browser and may not function properly. More information
    Science. 2012 May 18;336(6083):907-11. doi: 10.1126/science.1215191.

    Randomized government safety inspections reduce worker injuries with no detectable job loss.

    Source

    Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

    Abstract

    Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We analyzed a natural field experiment to examine how workplace safety inspections affected injury rates and other outcomes. We compared 409 randomly inspected establishments in California with 409 matched-control establishments that were eligible, but not chosen, for inspection. Compared with controls, randomly inspected employers experienced a 9.4% decline in injury rates (95% confidence interval = -0.177 to -0.021) and a 26% reduction in injury cost (95% confidence interval = -0.513 to -0.083). We find no evidence that these improvements came at the expense of employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival.

    PMID:
    22605775
    [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
    Free full text

      Supplemental Content

      Icon for HighWire

      Save items

      Recent activity

      Your browsing activity is empty.

      Activity recording is turned off.

      Turn recording back on

      See more...
      Write to the Help Desk