Citation

Lafuente E, Abad J. Safety Sci. 2021; 134: e105074.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssci.2020.105074

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study analyzes the efficiency of Spanish provinces in a model that incorporates occupational health and safety (OHS) policy controls and work accidents into the analysis. Building on productivity models rooted in non-parametric frontier methods, namely Data Envelopment Analysis, the proposed approach allows the development of a production function that accurately models the joint production of desirable (GDP) and undesirable (work accidents) outputs. The efficiency analysis of the 50 Spanish provinces during 2003-2012 reveals that territories that drastically cut resources dedicated to OHS controls--in our case, safety inspections and economic sanctions for safety violations--show higher inefficiency levels. Nevertheless, the changes in OHS policies introduced by Spanish provinces after the change in the state of the economy in 2008 had a heterogeneous impact on their efficiency level. Effective OHS policy is not necessarily linked to merely implementing more OHS policy controls, but rather to the capacity of territories to efficiently allocate their available OHS resources and monitor business activity. Policy implications and future research avenues are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Data envelopment analysis; Directional distance function; Economic cycle; OHS policy; Territorial efficiency; Work accidents; Work safety controls