Occupational accidents and the economic cycle in Spain 1994–2014

Work inspections as a control mechanism for mitigating work accidents in Europe

“…The findings of this supplementary model (Table A1) indicate that economic activity (ln GDP) and work inspections (ln inspections) are significantly correlated with the (ln) total number of work accidents. Similar to the findings reported in Table 2, the positive association between economic activity (GDP) and work accidents is in line with prior work highlighting the pro-cyclical relationship between these two variables (e.g., Asfaw et al, 2011, Fernández-Muñíz et al, 2018. Also, the negative result for the coefficient of the work inspections variable further corroborates the relevance of this monitoring mechanism for reducing the number of work accidents in Europe.…”

“…The pro-cyclical relationship between macroeconomic figures and work accident rates has been documented in previous studies (e.g., Boone and van Ours, 2006, Svensson, 2010, Asfaw et al, 2011, Boone et al, 2011, Fernández-Muñíz et al, 2018. Based on the logic that work accidents can only take place within work environments, this result confirms that work accidents are a negative externality (unintended consequence) of the countries' economic activity.…”

“…Overall, the results corroborate the positive association between macroeconomic figures (GDP per worker) and work accidents reported in prior work (e.g., Davies et al, 2009, Asfaw et al, 2011, Boone et al, 2011, De la Fuente et al, 2014, Fernández-Muñíz et al, 2018. Additionally, it was found that a model that includes safety mechanismsin our case, work inspections-into the economic function offers important insights about the effectiveness of the countries' safety system.…”

“…On the other hand, prior research has documented a notification effect associated to the greater reporting of accidents by workers (Gerdtham andRuhm, 2006, Davies et al, 2009). It has been argued that, in periods of economic growth, the relatively lower cost of finding a job in the market gives workers incentives to report all minor work accidents (e.g., Boone and van Ours, 2006, Boone et al, 2011, Fernández-Muñíz et al, 2018.…”

“…The academic literature dealing with the analysis of the relationship between fluctuations in economic activitye.g., variations in the GDP-and the rate of work accidents at country level often assumes that these variables are intrinsically associated over time (see, for example, Boone and van Ours, 2006, Davies et al, 2009, Asfaw et al, 2011, Fernández-Muñíz et al, 2018.…”