The re-occurrence of violations in occupational safety and health administration inspections

How well do firms in the United States maintain compliance with occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) standards after being cited for a violation? How and why does this vary among standards? This paper identifies serious violations of 91 frequently cited standards at manufacturing plants during 1992–2002 and tracks compliance with that standard in later inspections over 10 years. While formal measures of Repeat violations are quite low, we find considerably higher re-violation rates for some standards once we look separately at how often health standards are cited in later health inspections and safety standards cited in later safety inspections. Characteristics of the standards affect re-violation rates, but not always in the expected direction. Standards whose violations are rated as more hazardous or which received higher initial penalties tend to have more re-violations. These findings could reflect inspector behavior, with those standards getting more attention and thus being cited more frequently. When, as in the case of OSHA and other enforcement agencies, we know about violations only when inspectors cite them, we need to consider bureaucratic behavior as well as employers' incentives.     

OSHA INSPECTION COSTS, COMPLIANCE COSTS, AND OTHER OUTCOMES: THE FIRST DECADE

A number of critics of the Occupational Safety and Health Act have argued that it has greatly increased the cost of operation of the regulated industries while providing very little benefits. But OSHA's inspection costs were relatively inconsequential (only a small percent of work sites actually inspected). Although it engaged in a number of "nitpicking" inspections of non-serious citations, the average penalties were extremely low. At the same time OSHA provided considerable consultation and educational assistance to industry. Compliance costs, in theory, could be much larger, but it is incorrect to attribute all of these to OSHA. A num ber of indirect positive outcomes could be attributed to OSHA, even though it is not possible to measure these through cost-benefit analysis.     

Assessing OSHA Performance: New Evidence from the Construction Industry

The determinants of OSHA performance can be examined by breaking the regulatory process into three elements relating to enforcement, compliance behavior, and the adequacy of standards in addressing safety outcomes. This paper develops and applies this framework to the U.S. construction industry during the period 1987 to 1993. Enforcement activity among the firms in the sample was substantial, with firms facing a high probability of annual inspection. But, despite this significant enforcement effort, inspections have a modest effect on firm compliance with OSHA standards. Finally, the health and safety standards cited most frequently diverge from the major sources of fatalities and injuries on construction projects. These results suggest that historic enforcement policies toward construction make less sense as OSHA moves into its fourth decade of operation. More generally, the paper illustrates the problem of focusing enforcement resources on large, high‐profile companies even though they often are not the major source of regulatory problems in an established area of public policy intervention. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Preventing construction deaths: The role of public policies

Are stronger direct financial incentives or regulatory enforcement effective in reducing fatalities in the construction industry? We examine two important policies—state workers' compensation (WC) programs and federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) activities—which embody those strategies. We examine their impact by looking at state-level fatality rates in the construction industry from 1992 to 2016. Setting aside highway crashes and violence, the majority of employee deaths occur in construction. We find that states which exempt small firms from the requirement to buy WC insurance have higher fatality rates. When eligibility for compensation is restricted by longer waiting periods, fatality rates are substantially higher. More frequent federal or state OSHA inspections and, especially, consultation visits are associated with lower fatality rates, but higher average penalties are not. Limited variation in these policies over our sample period, especially for WC, makes these results suggestive rather than definitively causal.     

The Federal Antideficiency Act at 150—Where Do We Stand?

The Antideficiency Act of 1870 codified Congress's power of the purse to curb unauthorized agency spending. Is it still working? This paper analyzes all violations of the Act over 12 years by agency and type, causes and consequences, and how violations were detected. The number of violations has trended down slightly. While agency preventive controls have failed, detective controls are working. Employees and agencies are comfortable self‐reporting violations, which are neither pervasive nor material. The risk of violations increases during fiscal year transitions and periods of change. The Act remains effective at stopping unauthorized and overspending, but does not address wasteful spending.     

Non-random assignment,vehicle safety inspection laws and highway fatalities

In this study, the distribution of inspection laws across states is endogenously determined by the relative strengths of lobbying groups within states. Previous studies that treat the laws as exogenous and find a 5 to 15 percent reduction in fatalities may have produced biased results. A selection bias model is developed in which non-random assignment is taken into account. Two equations are estimated: one explaining how many inspections are required, and the other explaining the effects of the inspections on fatalities per capita. Using single-equation techniques, results are obtained that are similar to prior studies. In the two-equation model that accounts for non-random assignment, inspection laws are not found to significantly reduce fatalities per capita.     

How policy variables influence the timing of applications for Social Security Disability Insurance

This article analyzes the impact of policy variables--employer accommodations, state Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) allowance rates, and DI benefits--on the timing of an application for DI benefits by workers with a work-limiting health condition starting when their health condition first begins to bother them. The analysis uses a rich mixture of personal and employer characteristics from the Health and Retirement Study linked to Social Security administrative records. We find that most workers do not apply immediately for DI benefits when they are first bothered by a health condition. On the contrary, the median working-age man with a work-limiting condition waits 7 years after that time before applying, and the median working-age woman waits 8 years. Although the risk of applying for benefits is greatest in the year following onset, only 16 percent of men and 13 percent of women in our sample apply within the first year, and the risk of application falls thereafter. That finding suggests that institutional factors, in addition to health factors, may play a role in the timing of DI applications. Using kernel density estimates of the distribution of application and nonapplication ordered by state allowance rates (the rate of acceptance per DI determination in each state), we find that both men and women who live in states with high allowance rates are disproportionately more likely to apply for benefits in the first year after their condition begins to bother them than are those in states with low allowance rates. Using life-table analysis, we also find that men and women who are accommodated by their employers are significantly less likely to apply for DI benefits in each of the first few years after their condition begins to bother them than are those who are not accommodated. On the basis of this evidence, we include these policy variables in a model of the timing of DI application that controls for other socioeconomic variables as well as health. Using a hazard model, we find that workers who live in states with higher allowance rates apply for DI benefits significantly sooner than those living in states with lower allowance rates following the onset of a work-limiting health condition. Workers who are accommodated following the onset of a work-limiting health condition, however, are significantly slower to apply for DI benefits. Using the mean values of all explanatory variables, we estimate the relative importance of changes in these policy variables on the speed with which workers apply for benefits after onset. We find that the mean time until application for men is 10.22 years. Universal accommodations following onset would delay application by 4.36 years. In contrast, a 20 percent decrease in state allowance rates would delay application by only 0.88 years. For working-age women, the average expected time until application once a condition begins to bother them is 10.58 years. Universal accommodations would delay that by 3.76 years, and a 20 percent decrease in allowance rates would delay it by 1.47 years. A complication in this analysis is that the policy variables are to some degree endogenous. Accommodation is probably offered more often to workers who want to continue working. Allowance rates are chosen by states on the basis of federal policy and local choices and probably in part on the health condition of workers in the state. Therefore, our estimates are upper bounds of these policy effects. Still, we believe we provide evidence that the social environment faced by workers with work-limiting health conditions can significantly influence their decision to apply for DI benefits, holding their specific health conditions constant.     

新中国成立以来中国共产党纪律检查机关建设

新中国成立以来,党的纪律检查机关建设经历了初步探索（1949—1978）和恢复发展（1978至今）两个阶段,组织机构、干部队伍和体制机制建设的科学化水平逐步提高。前后两个时期党的纪律检查机关建设历程有很多不同,也有共同的规律,那就是党的建设是前提、改革发展是动力、干部队伍建设是重点。今后党的纪律检查机关建设仍应坚持党的领导,自觉融入党的建设总体布局;要不断改革完善现有的领导体制,增强独立性;通过强化队伍建设,保障干部的先进性、纯洁性。     

社会团体年度检查的法律困境与制度创新——以S市为例

社会团体年度检查是政府监督社会团体的一种重要方式。通过对S市社会团体年度检查工作考察,发现S市社会团体管理局经过多年的实践探索,在社会团体年度工作中形成了自身的特点,取得了较好效果。同时也发现年度检查面临法律依据失效、部分检查项目缺乏明文规定、主管单位初审责任加重、年度检查结果的执行刚度不够等法律困境。实现制度创新,促进社会团体健康发展,关键在于明确年度检查目的、修订《社会团体年度检查办法》、理顺社会团体党建工作和年度检查的关系、优化社会团体年度检查流程等方面。     

COMPETITION AND PERFORMANCE IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY

The paper examines the airline industry ten years after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. A brief review of the historical background of regulation and the changes leading to the Airline Deregulation Act is presented. A number of studies are cited that conclude that airline perfor- mance has improved since the Civil Aeronautics Board days. The author agrees with these conclusions but goes on to suggest that it is time to begin comparing the airline industry today with the standards of performance associated with perfect competition instead of the previous regulatory period. A standard of competitive performance is suggested. The traditional p=mc=ac performance is complicated because mc and ac decline for any airline flight until the plane is full or has a 100% load factor. The author suggests p=acat load factors are not yet reaching loo%, it is suggested that some policy modifications might help improve performance further. An- titrust is examined and some other institutional policy changes are sug- gested.     

How regulations undervalue occupational fatalities

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration establishes incentives for safety by setting and enforcing regulatory standards. Using four and a half decades of inspection data, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors underpinning penalties following fatalities. The “fatality premium” for regulatory violations following a worker death is quite modest and is several orders of magnitude below the value-of-a-statistical-life figure needed to establish efficient levels of deterrence in the absence of all other financial incentives. Although there are low statutory caps on penalties, only 8% of the penalties for violations involving fatalities are constrained by the cap, suggesting that current statutes establish norms for reasonable penalty amounts. In situations involving a fatality at firms with union representation during the inspection, the enforcement sanctions are more stringent. Fatalities involving migrant laborers are less heavily penalized.     

The Role of Procedural Controls in OSHA's Ergonomics Rulemaking

Few, if any, regulations over the past decade have received as much publicity or engendered such controversy as the ergonomics regulation of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). Some may see the ergonomics rule as the paradigmatic instance of procedural hurdles holding up and eventually destroying a regulation. This article examines the role that procedure played in the ergonomics rulemaking. Lessons are drawn from an analysis of the four publicly available versions of the regulation and interviews with seven high-ranking officials at OSHA and the Small Business Administration. Of the procedural hurdles faced by OSHA, the notice-and-comment requirement had the largest impact on the final rule. OMB review and requirements to conduct a cost-benefit analysis served largely as a fire alarm to political overseers, and the required small business panel had largely symbolic effects. The more traditional control of congressional budgetary oversight had the greatest effect by delaying the rule for three years, and thus eventually doomed OSHA's attempts to regulate.     

The Political Economy of Automobile Safety Inspections

Studies of traffic safety typically assumethat policies are adopted to further thepublic interest, thereby ignoring thepolitical motives for policy. Sincepolitical motives can influence the designor enforcement of policies, accounting forpolitical motives has relevance forevaluating policy effectiveness. Weexamine the political motives concerning afrequently-studied traffic safety policy: state-mandated vehicle safety inspection. We distinguish between public interest andspecial interest explanations for safetyinspection. Our econometric models examinethe incidence of inspection across states,and determinants of regulated inspectionfees. The evidence strongly rejects apublic interest explanation, but specialinterest hypotheses also do not proveentirely satisfactory. Since recentstudies find that inspections fail toimprove highway safety, we attribute thecontinued existence of inspection programsto political transaction costs rather thanto the demands of interest groups.     

Can Local Ordinances Prevent Neighborhood Destabilization?

This article assesses the ability of local housing ordinances to prevent neighborhood destabilization, specifically that arising as a consequence of the most recent housing crisis. We evaluate the degree to which vacancy registrations and point-of-sale inspection requirements influenced housing market outcomes during the housing crisis. With comprehensive real property data from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, we measure outcomes that characterize housing market distress including foreclosures, sales below the tax-assessed value, bulk sales, flipping, and property tax delinquency. We evaluate outcomes across properties in regulated and unregulated municipalities using matching procedures on linked data containing property, neighborhood, loan, and transaction characteristics. We find evidence that vacancy registrations substantially reduce foreclosures. In contrast, we find little evidence that point-of-sale inspections reduce undesirable transactions. Rather, properties in cities with inspection requirements displayed higher levels of foreclosure and tax delinquency relative to the control group during the study period.     

The status of OSHA reform: A comment on mendeloff's proposals

Since its inception, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been the target of regulatory reform proposals. OSHA has attracted this continued critical attention both because of inadequacies in the design of OSHA regulation and shortcomings in its implementation. John Mendeloff's critique and program of reform for OSHA focus primarily on inadequacies in the structure of OSHA policy rather than its implementation. Within that class of issues, Mendeloff provides a thoughtful analysis of OSHA policy. His regulatory proposals also address what appear to be the principal shortcomings of OSHA. However, the specific aspects of his proposal raise new problems with respect to the stability of regulatory policy and its unintended role in establishing barriers to entry in industry.     

“Carrying the black pot”: Food safety and risk in China's reactive regulatory state

This paper explores the struggles of China's party-state to address chronic food safety problems by adopting international best practices of risk-based regulation. Despite formally adopting risk-based approaches for targeting inspections and enforcement in 2002, implementation has been halting and uneven, as we show in the first analysis of risk-based regulation beyond its OECD heartlands. Drawing on policy document analysis and 36 key informant interviews with food business operators and government officials working on food safety regulation at every level of the state, we identify contradictions between official commitments to risk-based inspection and top-down demands for zero tolerance and strict accountability, which leave local inspectors preoccupied with avoiding blame more than reducing safety risks. Our analysis advances recent scholarship on regulatory states of the global South by highlighting how risk-based ideas, instruments, and practices are refracted through the distinctive norms and style of China's reactive regulatory state.     

江苏省非公企业纪检监察组织建设调查与思考

非公企业作为社会主义市场经济发展的重要主体,面临着反腐败的严峻问题。江苏省非公企业的纪检监察组织坚持以引导非公企业健康发展,促进非公企业守法经营、诚信经营、廉洁经营为目标,把纪检监察工作与企业生产经营有机结合起来,从而保证党在非公企业组织领域中的政治核心地位。依据企业规模,纪检监察组织建设在形态上主要有单独建制、联合组建和选派纪律监督员三种。正确界定职能是非公企业纪检监察工作健康开展的关键;配备结构合理、精干高效的纪检监察机构和纪检监察工作人员,是开展非公有制经济组织党风廉政建设的基础和依托。要从精准定位、分类指导、制度安排三个方面入手,逐步解决当前非公企业对纪检监察组织建设存在的认知不足、自觉性欠缺、资源供应不足等问题,规范非公企业纪律监督的组织运行,建立健全非公企业纪检监察组织网络,进一步完善非公企业纪检监察工作建设责任制,切实加快江苏省非公企业纪检监察组织建设。     

Questioning generational replacement. An age,period and cohort analysis of electoral volatility in the Netherlands, 1971–2010

Political behavior has been changing all over Western Europe and electoral volatility is one of the facets of politics in which this change is apparent. Theories on stabilization of political attitudes and behavior in lifetime and the slow rate at which change in the electoral arena is found to proceed, have led to the assumption of generational replacement as the mechanism driving change. The Netherlands, however, provide a remarkably different case of this trend in electoral volatility. The country has shifted from an example of how cleavages stabilize politics to one of the most electorally volatile countries in Europe. The Dutch surge in electoral volatility thus contrasts with expectations of a slow process driven by generational replacement. Starting from this apparent contradiction between the evolution of volatility in the Netherlands and theories on generational replacement, this article investigates time effects of electoral volatility. The study is based on an age, period and cohort analysis on the repeated cross-sectional data of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies, 1971–2010. Based on characteristics of such repeated cross-sectional data, individuals are cross-classified in birth cohorts and election years respectively, which overcomes the identification problem inherent in cohort analyses. Results of a Cross-Classified Random Effects Model (CCREM) indicate that, contrary to the hypothesis of new generations causing the increase in volatility, the Dutch change can be attributed primarily to period effects. As such, the analyses indicate that a general shift in the Dutch electorate has caused the growth in volatility and that supply-side factors should probably be analyzed when trying to explain electoral volatility.     

Examining Relationships Between Legislative and Presidential Influences and Organizational Probity: Evidence from South Korean Central Government Agencies

In public management, few empirical studies have been conducted on the effects of the most influential political authorities—the legislature and the president—on government organizations, despite the theoretical and practical significance of these effects. This study tests the relationships between legislative and presidential influences and organizational probity in South Korean central government agencies, on the basis of political transaction-cost and principal–agent theories. We use three measures of legislative influence—inspectional influence (total annual days of legislative inspection), statutory influence (rules-to-laws ratio), and budgetary influence (ratio of reprogramming budget to total budget), and one measure of presidential influence (annual number of substantive meetings with the president). Then, these independent variables are linked to the organizational probity measure from audited archival data. The two-time-point panel data analysis reveals a positive link between legislative inspectional influence and probity but a negative relationship between the presidential influence measure and probity; the results support theoretical arguments for control over administrative agencies. Thus, the evidence suggests that governments should be cautious of implementing reforms that increase organizational or managerial autonomy.     

Big field,small potatoes: An empirical assessment of EPA's self‐audit policy

Environmental self‐auditing is said to deserve and require encouragement. Although firms can audit themselves more cheaply and effectively than regulators, they are deterred for fear that information they uncover will be used against them. To reduce this disincentive, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Audit Policy lowers punitive fines when firms promptly disclose and correct self‐discovered violations. While some contend that the Audit Policy is inadequate, EPA touts its success based on the policy's track record. Our examination of that track record leads us to question EPA's claim. Comparing the violations in these cases with those detected by standard EPA enforcement suggests that the typical self‐audited violation is relatively minor. Cases arising under the Policy are more likely to concern reporting violations and less likely to concern emissions. The relative insignificance of self‐audited violations raises a number of policy questions, including whether the Audit Policy should be revised to play a larger role in enforcement. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.