Industry Accident Rates:Some Cross‐Country Findings

During the 1970s a number of countries, notably Britain, the United States, Sweden and West Germany, passed important new legislation in the area of workplace health and safety. One consequence of such legislation has been a substantial upsurge of research interest, on the part of both economists and behavioural scientists, in the area of workplace health and safety in the various countries concerned. As this body of research accumulates we are beginning to see the emergence of a number of findings common to various countries. In the case of industrial accidents, for example, it is now reasonably well established that (i) the high (low) accident rate industries in one year are the high (low) accident rate industries in other years; (ii) the overall accident rate bears a positive relationship to movements in the business cycle; (iii) the unionised section of the workforce is disproportionately employed in the high accident rate industries; and (iv) employees in the high accident rate industries receive at least some measure of wage compensation for bearing this above average risk.