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Abstract
This dissertation provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of factors that influence the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) choices of which among a number of alternative companies and work sites are to be inspected and factors that influence a firm's decision to comply with OSHA regulations.
Two broad hypotheses are examined, using a sample of construction firms in Georgia and Illinois. The first hypothesis is that the perceived benefits of an inspection are related only to the stated legislative mission of OSHA. The second hypothesis is that the perceived benefits of an inspection are related to regulatory agendas other than the reduction of workplace injuries.
In modeling the determinants of perceived benefits to OSHA of an inspection, it is assumed (a) that the perceived benefits of inspecting a firm are defined in terms of maintaining and increasing the budgetary resources available to OSHA for its regulatory activities, (b) that this requires that OSHA maximize the political support it receives, and (c) that OSHA assumes such political support to depend on satisfying both the stated legislative agenda and the less visible agenda of restraining competition and providing regulatory transfers.
Maximum likelihood estimates of the OSHA inspection equation were obtained, and results of the logit estimation indicate that the inspection equation is highly successful in predicting the likelihood of an OSHA inspection. One important conclusion is that even though OSHA is assumed to act in a way that maximizes political support for its activities, it seems to act as if its agenda conforms to the legislative mandate.
The firm's decision to comply with OSHA regulations is modeled as an ordered qualitative-choice model. It is assumed that certain threshold levels of compliance trigger different types of OSHA citations, and the extent to which a firm is cited by OSHA provides indirect evidence of the level of effort made by the firm to comply with regulations.
The empirical analysis explores the relationship between the degree of compliance by the firm and the following variables: unionization, employment size, past behavior, fines imposed by OSHA, state, net worth and/or sales, and the probability of an inspection. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)