Title: An index decomposition of factors impacting safety on the job site

Authors: Daniel V. Gordon

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of Calgary, Canada; Department of Industrial Economics, University of Stavanger, Norway

Abstract: Occupational health and safety regulations are in place to ensure safety standards and improve safety on the worksite. The impact of safety standards varies across industries and certainly impacted by industry specific risk factors, and exogenous factors in the economy that impact the level and change in employment. The purpose of this paper is to use a decomposition approach based on the Törnqvist index to compare and measure the aggregate impact of occupational health and safety regulations, as well as, industry specific risk variables and general economic conditions on lost-time claims for eight industrial sectors in the province of Alberta, Canada. The index approach has the advantage over standard correlation techniques in that the residual value remaining after index decomposition can be defined as the basic industry risk factor for accident and injury.

Keywords: safety; risk; Törnqvist index decomposition; accident and injury.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBCRM.2017.088811

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management, 2017 Vol.7 No.3, pp.244 - 255

Published online: 19 Dec 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article