Occupational safety in a frictional labor market
研究了劳动力市场搜索摩擦如何降低企业提供职业安全的长期收益，导致社会最优安全水平下降，并利用美国数据验证了失业率与工伤死亡率之间的正相关关系。
Work-related injuries and diseases entail substantial economic costs worldwide. This paper studies how the provision of occupational safety is affected by the presence of search frictions on the labor market. Safety measures reduce a firm’s current profit but increase future expected output due to lower worker mortality. I find that search frictions reduce the long-run gains of safety measures, which lowers the socially optimal level of occupational safety relative to a frictionless labor market. In a decentralized setting where wages and safety measures are determined at the firm level, matching externalities and a labor supply externality may further reduce safety provision. I obtain conditions under which these externalities are internalized and discuss the role of policy in promoting occupational safety. The model predicts a positive relationship between the equilibrium unemployment rate and work-related mortality, which is verified using US data on fatal occupational injuries. Based on these estimates, I conclude that mortality from work-related injuries may be 10–15% lower in absence of search frictions.