Are stronger direct financial incentives or regulatory enforcement effective in reducing fatalities in the construction industry? We examine two important policies—state workers' compensation (WC) programs and federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) activities—which embody those strategies. We examine their impact by looking at state-level fatality rates in the construction industry from 1992 to 2016. Setting aside highway crashes and violence, the majority of employee deaths occur in construction. We find that states which exempt small firms from the requirement to buy WC insurance have higher fatality rates. When eligibility for compensation is restricted by longer waiting periods, fatality rates are substantially higher. More frequent federal or state OSHA inspections and, especially, consultation visits are associated with lower fatality rates, but higher average penalties are not. Limited variation in these policies over our sample period, especially for WC, makes these results suggestive rather than definitively causal.

中文翻译：

---

预防施工死亡：公共政策的作用

更强有力的直接财政激励或监管执法是否能有效减少建筑行业的死亡人数？我们研究了体现这些策略的两项重要政策——州工人赔偿 (WC) 计划以及联邦和州职业安全与健康管理局 (OSHA) 活动。我们通过观察 1992 年至 2016 年建筑业各州的死亡率来检验其影响。撇开高速公路事故和暴力事件不谈，大多数员工死亡都发生在建筑业。我们发现，免除小企业购买 WC 保险要求的州死亡率较高。当赔偿资格因等待时间较长而受到限制时，死亡率就会大幅上升。更频繁的联邦或州 OSHA 检查，尤其是 咨询就诊与较低的死亡率相关，但较高的平均处罚则不然。在我们的样本期内，这些政策的变化有限，尤其是对于 WC，这使得这些结果具有暗示性，而不是明确的因果关系。