The Permissible Scope of OSHA Complaint Inspections

What kinds of injuries do OSHA inspections prevent?

OBJECTIVE OSHA's enforcement program is one of the major public efforts to protect American workers. We examine both the scope of injury prevention that inspections can contribute and the types of standards that contribute the most. METHODS We linked Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry files for lost-time injuries and employment to calculate injury rates for 1998-2005 for all single...

The Determinants of Federal and State Enforcement of Workplace Safety Regulations: OSHA Inspections 1990-2010.

We explore the determinants of inspection outcomes across 1.6 million Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) audits from 1990 through 2010. We find that discretion in enforcement differs in state and federally conducted inspections. State agencies are more sensitive to local economic conditions, finding fewer standard violations and fewer serious violations as unemployment increases. Larg...

Use of OSHA inspections data for fatal occupational injury surveillance in New Jersey.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) computerized inspections data, death certificates, and medical examiner records identified 204 fatal occupational injuries in New Jersey, 1984-85. OSHA computerized data uniquely identified seven cases. They did not identify 35 fatalities under OSHA's jurisdiction, of which 24 were investigated by OSHA but not recorded, four were not consider...

No . 2012 - 02 Regulatory Enforcement , Politics , and Institutional Distance : OSHA Inspections 1990 - 2010

Using a dataset of over 1.6 million inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) from 1990 through 2010, we explore the determinants of inspection and enforcement outcomes. OSHA is an institutionally split agency, with the federal agency conducting inspections in 25 states and state agencies conducting inspections in the remaining 25. The geographic variety and range over 21 ...

The Scope of Man's Free Will