CAN GOVERNMENT FACILITATE COOPERATION - AN INFORMATIONAL MODEL OF OSHA ENFORCEMENT

Theory: Government can facilitate cooperation between private parties in collective action dilemmas. Regulatory agencies provide a bargainin g arena to establish common expectations, and enforcement activities a id in monitoring cooperative agreements. Hypotheses: We compare two en forcement models of the impact of OSHA inspections on workplace safety . The deterrence model assumes that enforcement rests on coercion, so only inspections imposing sanctions should reduce injuries in inspecte d plants. The collective action model assumes that enforcement can als o facilitate cooperation by providing information, so complaint inspec tions that signal worker mistrust can decrease injuries even without s anctions. Methods: We test the impact of OSHA inspections on injury ra tes at 6,842 plants during 1979-85, using maximum likelihood regressio n analysis to analyze the panel data. Results: Inspections initiated b y workers reduce injuries regardless of penalty, suggesting that infor mation rather than coercion is the critical factor in complaint inspec tions. Regular inspections reduce injuries only when penalties are imp osed, which is consistent with both models. We conclude that both coer cive and facilitative models are needed to understand regulatory behav ior.