Productivity, Safety, and Regulation in Coal Mining: Evidence From Disasters and Fatalities
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Coal mining is a dangerous occupation where costly fatalities and disasters may in-crease future accident costs. We use occurrences of deaths as shocks that affect the trade-off between mineral output and safety. We find that government inspections and penalties increase after fatalities, and less-severe accident rates decrease by 10%. For mines in a disaster-affected state, less-severe accident rates decrease by 23%, and fatalities by 68%, saving up to $2 per hour in accident costs, with limited evidence suggesting that mineral productivity falls by 7%, or $14 per worker hour, and that the number of managers em-ployed increases by 11%.
Authors: Gautam Gowrisankaran, Charles He, Eric Lutz, Jefferey L. Burgess
Language: English
Topic: Industrial and Mining Safety
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1572079609