IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v61y2008i2p181-200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wage and Injury Response to Shifts in Workplace Liability

Author

Listed:
  • Richard J. Butler
  • John D. Worrall

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of a monumental change in tort liability law, the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) of 1908. This shift from common law, by changing the way injured workers were compensated and the compensating wage differentials for risk bearing, set the stage for workers' compensation and other no-fault systems. Focusing on the New Jersey railroad system, the authors examine three periods: the pre-FELA years of 1900–1908; 1909–11, when the FELA laws were the only changes in the common laws affecting some railroad workers; and 1912–16, when both FELA and workers' compensation laws affected railroad workers. They find that as liability shifted to railroad companies, accident rates fell for three occupational groups who worked outdoors, but rose for railroad “craft†employees (who worked indoors in shops). They also find that wages shifted for all four of the major occupational groups as predicted by their model.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard J. Butler & John D. Worrall, 2008. "Wage and Injury Response to Shifts in Workplace Liability," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(2), pages 181-200, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:61:y:2008:i:2:p:181-200
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390806100203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390806100203
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390806100203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Rees & Donald P. Jacobs, 1961. "Real Wages in Manufacturing, 1890-1914," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rees61-1, March.
    2. Fishback, Price V., 1992. "Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195067255.
    3. Fishback, Price V. & Kantor, Shawn Everett, 1996. "The Durable Experiment: State Insurance of Workers' Compensation Risk in the Early Twentieth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 809-836, December.
    4. Price V. Fishback, 1998. "Operations of "Unfettered" Labor Markets: Exit and Voice in American Labor Markets at the Turn of the Century," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 722-765, June.
    5. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    6. Kim, Seung-Wook & Fishback, Price V., 1993. "Institutional Change, Compensating Differentials, and Accident Risk in American Railroding, 1892–1945," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 796-823, December.
    7. Price V. Fishback & Shawn Everett Kantor, 1995. "Did Workers Pay for the Passage of Workers' Compensation Laws?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 713-742.
    8. Price V. Fishback & Shawn Everett Kantor, 2000. "A Prelude to the Welfare State: The Origins of Workers' Compensation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fish00-1, March.
    9. Fishback, Price V. & Kantor, Shawn Everett, 2000. "A Prelude to the Welfare State," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226251639, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. C. Simon Fan & Oded Stark, 2011. "A Theory Of Migration As A Response To Occupational Stigma," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(2), pages 549-571, May.

    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. Price V. Fishback, 2006. "The Irony of Reform. Did Large Employers Subvert Workplace Safety Reform, 1869 to 1930?," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 285-318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Murray, John E. & Nilsson, Lars, 2007. "Accident risk compensation in late imperial Austria: Wage differentials and social insurance," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 568-587, October.
    3. Samuel K. ALLEN, 2015. "Struggle for Regulatory Power between States and the US Federal Government: The Case of Workers’ Compensation Insurance 1930-2000," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 2(3), pages 351-373, September.
    4. Boal, William M., 2018. "Work intensity and worker safety in early twentieth-century coal mining," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 132-149.
    5. Fishback, Price V & Kantor, Shawn Everett, 1998. "The Adoption of Workers' Compensation in the United States, 1900-1930," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 305-341, October.
    6. Addison, John T., 2006. "Politico-Economic Causes of Labor Regulation in the United States: Rent Seeking, Alliances, Raising Rivals' Costs (Even Lowering One's Own?), and Interjurisdictional Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 2381, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Price V. Fishback, 2020. "Rule of Law in Labor Relations, 1898-1940," NBER Working Papers 27614, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Cento Veljanovski, 2021. "The Impact of Employers' Liability on 19th‐Century U.K. Coalmining Fatalities," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(3), pages 660-683, September.
    9. Javier Silvestre & John E. Murray, 2023. "Determinants in the adoption of a non-labor-substitution technology: mechanical ventilation in West Virginia coal mines, 1898–1907," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 467-500, September.
    10. Price V. Fishback & Rebecca Holmes & Samuel Allen, 2008. "Lifting the Curse of Dimensionality: Measures of the Labor Legislation Climate in the States During the Progressive Era," NBER Working Papers 14167, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Alston, Lee J. & Dupre, Ruth & Nonnenmacher, Tomas, 2002. "Social reformers and regulation: the prohibition of cigarettes in the United States and Canada," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 425-445, October.
    12. Robert L. Clark & Lee A. Craig & John Sabelhaus, 2011. "State and Local Retirement Plans in the United States," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13685.
    13. Price Fishback & Samuel Allen & Jonathan Fox & Brendan Livingston, 2010. "A Patchwork Safety Net: A Survey Of Cliometric Studies Of Income Maintenance Programs In The United States In The First Half Of The Twentieth Century," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 895-940, December.
    14. Lars Fredrik Andersson & Liselotte Eriksson & Paul Nystedt, 2022. "Workplace accidents and workers’ solidarity: mutual health insurance in early twentieth‐century Sweden†," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(1), pages 203-234, February.
    15. Bruce G. Carruthers & Naomi R. Lamoreaux, 2016. "Regulatory Races: The Effects of Jurisdictional Competition on Regulatory Standards," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 52-97, March.
    16. Timothy W. Guinnane, 2011. "The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 589-614, September.
    17. Carruthers, Bruce G. & Guinnane, Timothy W. & Lee, Yoonseok, 2009. "Bringing "Honest Capital" to Poor Borrowers: The Passage of the Uniform Small Loan Law, 1907-1930," Center Discussion Papers 50949, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    18. repec:zbw:rwirep:0364 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Stoian, Adrian & Fishback, Price, 2010. "Welfare spending and mortality rates for the elderly before the Social Security era," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-27, January.
    20. Joshua L. Rosenbloom & William A. Sundstrom, 2009. "Labor-Market Regimes in U.S. Economic History," NBER Working Papers 15055, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "The Rise of the Regulatory State," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 401-425, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:61:y:2008:i:2:p:181-200. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.