IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v15y2022i10p481-d949340.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Mortality Risk Analysis for OSHA’s COVID-19 Emergency Regulations

Author

Listed:
  • James Broughel

    (Mercatus Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22201, USA)

  • Andrew Baxter

    (Independent Researcher, Fairfax, VA 22209, USA)

Abstract

In 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued two emergency temporary standard regulations related to COVID-19 hazards in US workplaces. One regulation covered healthcare sector workers, while the second regulation would have covered workers at firms with 100 or more employees. This paper conducts an original mortality risk analysis for these regulations. Mortality risk analysis evaluates the increase or decrease in expected mortality associated with a new policy, such as a rule or regulation, taking into account economic factors like lost income due to regulatory costs. If we accept OSHA’s cost and health benefit estimates at face value, we find that the first regulation related to COVID-19 hazards in the healthcare sector reduces risk initially but increases risk over a longer time horizon. We find that the second regulation would reduce risk according to OSHA’s main estimates but may not reduce risk after including some ancillary costs and adjusting the agency’s prevented hospitalizations estimate based on more reasonable assumptions. Moreover, OSHA’s economic analysis for the two regulations in question does not purport to comprehensively evaluate costs; ergo, our mortality risk estimates probably underestimate countervailing mortality risks stemming from these regulations. We review some of OSHA’s underlying assumptions that could change the outcomes of our mortality analysis. These estimates demonstrate that OSHA would benefit from more comprehensive consideration of costs in its economic analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • James Broughel & Andrew Baxter, 2022. "A Mortality Risk Analysis for OSHA’s COVID-19 Emergency Regulations," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:15:y:2022:i:10:p:481-:d:949340
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/15/10/481/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/15/10/481/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harberger, Arnold C. & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2015. "Musings on the Social Discount Rate 1," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 6-32, April.
    2. Òscar Jordà & Katharina Knoll & Dmitry Kuvshinov & Moritz Schularick & Alan M Taylor, 2019. "The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1225-1298.
    3. Richard Zeckhauser & W. Viscusi, 2008. "Discounting dilemmas: Editors’ introduction," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 95-106, December.
    4. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2014. "A Model of the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1199-1239, July.
    5. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    6. Broughel, James & Chambers, Dustin, 2021. "Federal Regulation and Mortality in the 50 States," Working Papers 10289, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    7. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "How Much Consumption Insurance beyond Self-Insurance?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 53-87, October.
    8. Broughel, James, 2021. "Rehabilitating the Opportunity Cost of Capital in Cost–Benefit Analysis," Working Papers 11433, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    9. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Röhrs, Sigrid & Winter, Christoph, 2017. "Reducing government debt in the presence of inequality," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-20.
    2. Eva De Francisco, 2019. "Housing Choices and Their Implications for Consumption Heterogeneity," International Finance Discussion Papers 1249, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Adam Pigoń, 2022. "A Simple Model of Educated Hand-to-Mouth Consumers," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 20-43.
    4. Sebastian Koehne & Moritz Kuhn, 2015. "Should unemployment insurance be asset-tested?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 575-592, July.
    5. Bayer, Christian & Born, Benjamin & Luetticke, Ralph, 2023. "The liquidity channel of fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 86-117.
    6. Tao Wang, 2023. "Perceived versus Calibrated Income Risks in Heterogeneous-Agent Consumption Models," Staff Working Papers 23-59, Bank of Canada.
    7. Richard Foltyn & Jonna Olsson, 2021. "Subjective Life Expectancies, Time Preference Heterogeneity, and Wealth Inequality," Working Papers 2021_13, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    8. Manuel Arellano & Richard Blundell & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Earnings and Consumption Dynamics: A Nonlinear Panel Data Framework," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 693-734, May.
    9. Röhrs, Sigrid & Winter, Christoph, 2015. "Public versus private provision of liquidity: Is there a trade-off?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 314-339.
    10. Pierre Mabille, 2019. "Aggregate Precautionary Savings Motives," 2019 Meeting Papers 344, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    12. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje (Poe) Porapakkarm & Mariacristina De Nardi, 2017. "The Lifetime Costs of Bad Health," 2017 Meeting Papers 533, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Itay Saporta-Eksten, 2016. "Consumption Inequality and Family Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 387-435, February.
    14. Del Negro, Marco & Giannone, Domenico & Giannoni, Marc P. & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2019. "Global trends in interest rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 248-262.
    15. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    16. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2013. "The Effects of the Saving and Banking Glut on the U.S. Economy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2013, pages 52-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Alisdair McKay, "undated". "Idiosyncratic risk, insurance, and aggregate consumption dynamics: a likelihood perspective," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2013-013, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    18. Ralph Luetticke, 2021. "Transmission of Monetary Policy with Heterogeneity in Household Portfolios," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 1-25, April.
    19. Edouard Challe & Julien Matheron & Xavier Ragot & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramirez, 2017. "Precautionary saving and aggregate demand," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 435-478, July.
    20. Xavier Ragot, 2018. "Limited Participation, Capital Accumulation and Optimal Monetary Policy," Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers 2018-12, Sciences Po Departement of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:15:y:2022:i:10:p:481-:d:949340. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.