Swapping Regulation for Litigation: The Effects of Workers' Compensation Opt-Out on the Injury Claims of Large Multi-State Firms

将法规改为诉讼：工人赔偿选择退出对大型跨国公司伤害索赔的影响

• 批准号: 0850636
• 负责人: Alison Morantz
• 金额: $ 20.8万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-03-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0850636&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Swapping; Regulation; Litigation; Effects; Workers

The "great compromise" of workers' compensation, whereby workers relinquished the right to sue their employers in exchange for limited no-fault occupational injury insurance, was one of the most significant tort reforms of the 20th Century. Yet because workers' compensation coverage is compulsory and universal in most U.S. states, few scholars have compared its consequences to those of tort liability. Methodologically, the problem is that there is no readily-identifiable "control group" against which to compare the behavior of affected workers and firms. However, one state--Texas--offers a unique laboratory in which to undertake such comparisons. Under Texas law, employers may opt out of workers' compensation and forfeit tort immunity. This phenomenon, called "nonsubscription," has been on the rise since the 1990s among large firms. Interestingly, despite having no legal obligation to do so, most large nonsubscribers furnish their workers with occupational injury plans that substantially replicate the benefits provided through workers' compensation. This study, the first stage of a planned multi-part investigation into Texas nonsubscription, will examine how nonsubscription affects the frequency, cost, and duration of large firms' occupational injury claims. The key methodological challenge that any study of this type must confront is selection bias. Since firms are not randomly assigned across sectors, firm-level disparities between subscribing and nonsubscribing firms may reflect unobservable differences between firms. To minimize the potentially confounding effects of firm-level self-selection, this study has obtained highly granular data from a diverse group of large nonsubscribers that operate homogenous facilities in many U.S. states. To exploit variation across states, the study compares workers in the Texas facilities of each nonsubscriber to employees in its non-Texas facilities. Meanwhile, for those firms that have retained data from the period prior to nonsubscription, the investigator also will compare trends before and after each firm's date of opt-out.

工人赔偿的"大妥协"，即工人放弃起诉雇主的权利，以换取有限的无过错职业伤害保险，是20世纪世纪最重要的侵权改革之一。 然而，由于工人赔偿在美国大多数州都是强制性和普遍性的，很少有学者将其后果与侵权责任进行比较。从方法论上讲，问题在于没有一个容易识别的"对照组"来比较受影响的工人和公司的行为。 然而，有一个州-得克萨斯州-提供了一个进行这种比较的独特实验室。 根据得克萨斯州的法律，雇主可以选择退出工人的赔偿和丧失侵权豁免权。 这种现象被称为"不认购"，自20世纪90年代以来在大公司中呈上升趋势。 有趣的是，尽管没有法律的义务这样做，但大多数大型非投保者为他们的工人提供职业伤害计划，这些计划基本上复制了通过工人赔偿提供的福利。 这项研究，计划的多部分调查到得克萨斯州的第一阶段，将探讨如何退订影响的频率，成本和大公司的职业伤害索赔的持续时间。 任何这类研究都必须面对的关键方法学挑战是选择偏差。 由于公司不是随机分配到不同的行业，公司层面的差异之间的认购和非认购公司可能反映了公司之间的不可观察的差异。 为了尽量减少潜在的混淆影响公司层面的自我选择，这项研究已经获得了高度颗粒化的数据，从一个不同的大型nonsubscribers组，在美国许多州经营同质设施。 为了利用各州之间的差异，该研究将每个非订户的德克萨斯州设施中的工人与非德克萨斯州设施中的员工进行了比较。 同时，对于那些保留了未订阅前数据的公司，研究者还将比较每家公司选择退出日期前后的趋势。