Has Devolution Injured American Workers? State and Federal Enforcement of Construction Safety

Although the issue of regulatory devolution has received muchscholarly scrutiny, rigorous empirical studies of its effectson important policy outcomes are scarce. This article exploresthe effects of partial regulatory devolution in the occupationalsafety arena by exploiting a unique historical anomaly wherebysome US states enforce protective labor regulations that areenforced elsewhere by the federal Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration. Analyzing data from the construction industry,this article contains several important findings. First, stateinspectors use traditional enforcement tools more sparinglythan their federal counterparts, typically citing fewer violationsand collecting lower fines per violation. Second, although federalenforcement significantly lowers the estimated frequency ofnonfatal construction injuries, it also predicts a significantincrease in occupational fatalities. I suggest that althoughhigher underreporting of nonfatal injuries in federally regulatedstates could explain this puzzling finding, it is equally possiblethat different regulatory styles have different "comparativeadvantages" in deterring nonfatal injuries on one hand and occupationalfatalities on the other. (JEL D73, D78, H73, I18, J08, J28,J88, K00, K23, K31, K32, L51, and L74)