The Declining Effects of OSHA Inspections on Manufacturing Injuries: 1979 to 1998

This study compares the impact of OSHA inspections on manufacturing industries using data from three time periods: 1979-85, 1987-91, and 1992-98. We find substantial declines in the impact of OSHA inspections since 1979-85. In the earliest period we estimate that having an OSHA inspection that imposed a penalty reduces injuries by about 15%; in the later periods it falls to 8% in 1987-91 and to 1% (and statistically insignificant) in 1992-98. Testing for different effects by inspection type, employment size, and industry, we find differences across size classes, but these cannot explain the overall decline. In fact, we find reductions in OSHA's impact over time for nearly all subgroups we examine, so shifts across subgroups cannot explain the whole decline. We examine various other hypotheses concerning the declining impact, but in the end we are not able to provide a clear explanation for the decline.

Enforcement of pollution regulations in a declining industry

An examination of the effect of EPA enforcement activity as it relates to company plant-closing decisions and company compliance decisions in the U.S. steel industry, finding fewer enforcement actions taken toward plants with an already high probability of closing.Steel industry and trade ; Pollution

Are OSHA Health Inspections Effective? A Longitudinal Study in the Manufacturing Sector

We examine the impact of OSHA health inspections on compliance with agency regulations in the manufacturing sector, with a unique plant-level dataset of inspection and compliance behavior during 1972-1983, the first twelve years of OSHA enforcement operations. Two major findings are robust across the range of linear and count models estimated in the paper: (1) the number of citations and the number of violations of worker exposure restrictions decrease with additional health inspections in manufacturing plants; and (2) the first health inspection has the strongest impact. The results suggest that prior research focusing on the limited impact of OSHA safety regulations may under-estimate OSHA's total contribution to reducing workplace risks.

Optimal Pollution Abatement - Whose Benefits Matter, and How Much?

We examine measures of environmental regulatory activity (inspections and enforcement actions) and levels of air and water pollution at approximately 300 U.S. pulp and paper mills, using data for 1985-1997. We find that levels of air and water pollution emissions are affected both by the benefits from pollution abatement and by the characteristics of the people exposed to the pollution. The results suggest substantial differences in the weights assigned to different types of people: the benefits received by out-of-state people seem to count only half as much as benefits received in-state, although their weight increases if the bordering state's Congressional delegation is strongly pro-environment. Some variables are also associated with greater regulatory activity being directed towards the plant, but those results are less consistent with our hypotheses than the pollution emissions results. One set of results was consistently contrary to expectations: plants with more nonwhites nearby emit less pollution. Some of our results might be due to endogenous sorting of people based on pollution levels, but an attempt to examine this using the local population turnover rate found evidence of sorting for only one of four pollutants.

Family Effects in Youth Employment

The authors begin with the hypothesis that parental contacts play a major role in finding jobs for youth. This hypothesis is tested with a model of youth employment that includes characteristics of other family members in addition to a large set of control variables. Particular attention is paid to parental characteristics that might indicate a parent's ability to assist the youth in finding a job, including occupation, industry and education. The effects of such variables are generally not significant and do not support the initial hypothesis. However, the employment probability of a youth is significantly affected by the presence of employed siblings, indicating the presence of some intrafamily effects.

The Impact of OSHA and EPA Regulation on Productivity

This paper presents estimates of the impact of OSHA and EPA regulation on productivity. Production information for 1450 manufacturing industries from 1958 to 1980 is merged with measures of regulation, including both information on compliance expenditures by industry and enforcement efforts by OSHA and EPA. Industries that faced higher regulation during the 1970s had significantly lower productivity growth, and a greater productivity slowdown, than industries that faced lower regulation. Under certain assumptions, the regulation is estimated to have reduced average industry productivity growth by .57 percent per year, 39 percent of the average productivity slowdown. These results are robust to variations in the model and the inclusion of other productivity determinants, including poor output growth and dependence on energy. The results also suggest a one-time cost of adjustment to regulation, so the long-run impact nay be less than that estimated here. Both OSHA and EPA are found to target their enforcement effort towards those industries that are doing poorly in meeting the goals of the regulation. However, in the only area where benefits from regulation can be examined, worker injury rates and OSHA safety inspections, no significant benefits are found.

Longitudinal Patterns of Compliance with OSHA Health and Safety Regulations in the Manufacturing Sector

We examine the impact of OSHA enforcement on company compliance with agency regulations in the manufacturing sector, with a unique plant-level data set of inspection and compliance behavior during 1972-1983, the first twelve years of the agency operation. The analysis suggests that, for an individual inspected plant, the average effect of OSHA inspections during this period was to reduce expected citations by 3.0 or by .36 s.d. The total effect on expected citations of additional inspections can be decomposed into two parts; evaluated at the mean of the sample, 59 percent of the total change in citations occurred due to an increase in the compliance rate; 41 percent was due to a reduction in citations among continuing violators.

The IGF1 small dog haplotype is derived from Middle Eastern gray wolves

Abstract Background A selective sweep containing the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) gene is associated with size variation in domestic dogs. Intron 2 of IGF1 contains a SINE element and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) found in all small dog breeds that is almost entirely absent from large breeds. In this study, we surveyed a large sample of grey wolf populations to better understand the ancestral pattern of variation at IGF1 with a particular focus on the distribution of the small dog haplotype and its relationship to the origin of the dog. Results We present DNA sequence data that confirms the absence of the derived small SNP allele in the intron 2 region of IGF1 in a large sample of grey wolves and further establishes the absence of a small dog associated SINE element in all wild canids and most large dog breeds. Grey wolf haplotypes from the Middle East have higher nucleotide diversity suggesting an origin there. Additionally, PCA and phylogenetic analyses suggests a closer kinship of the small domestic dog IGF1 haplotype with those from Middle Eastern grey wolves. Conclusions The absence of both the SINE element and SNP allele in grey wolves suggests that the mutation for small body size post-dates the domestication of dogs. However, because all small dogs possess these diagnostic mutations, the mutations likely arose early in the history of domestic dogs. Our results show that the small dog haplotype is closely related to those in Middle Eastern wolves and is consistent with an ancient origin of the small dog haplotype there. Thus, in concordance with past archeological studies, our molecular analysis is consistent with the early evolution of small size in dogs from the Middle East. See associated opinion by Driscoll and Macdonald: http://jbiol.com/content/9/2/1

Environmental Regulation, Investment Timing, and Technology Choice

We began this project interested in collecting real-world' insight about how environmental regulation affects the paper industry. Based on conversations with people in the industry and visits to paper mills, we formulated several hypotheses related to technology choice in new mills and the investment decision for existing plants. We tested these hypotheses using technology choice data for 686 paper mills and annual investment data for 116 mills. Technology choice is influenced by environmental regulation. New mills in states with strict environmental regulations are less likely to employ the more polluting technologies involving pulping. Differences between air and water pollution regulations also emerge, with the dirtiest technology in each medium avoiding those states with the strictest regulations. The magnitudes of the impacts are sizable, with a one standard deviation increase in stringency associated with several percentage point reductions in the probability of choosing a dirty technology. State regulatory stringency and plant technology have little or no effect on annual investment spending at existing plants. However, pollution abatement investment is significantly related to productive (non-abatement) investment. Plants with high abatement investment spend less on productive capital. The magnitude of the impact corresponds to nearly complete crowding out of productive investment by abatement investment. Examining investment timing, we find that abatement and productive investment tend to be concentrated in the same years, consistent with the high cost of shutting down a paper mill for renovations.

G-Filtering Nonstationary Time Series

The classical linear filter can successfully filter the components from a time series for which the frequency content does not change with time, and those nonstationary time series with time-varying frequency (TVF) components that do not overlap. However, for many types of nonstationary time series, the TVF components often overlap in time. In such a situation, the classical linear filtering method fails to extract components from the original process. In this paper, we introduce and theoretically develop the G-filter based on a time-deformation technique. Simulation examples and a real bat echolocation example illustrate that the G-filter can successfully filter a G-stationary process whose TVF components overlap with time