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Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Chever

    (Sorbonne Business School/Chaire EPPP)

  • Michael Klien

    (Austrian Institute of Economic Research)

Abstract

To deal with elevator accidents the French ‘Robien law’ mandated safety upgrades for ‘old’ elevators. Available statistics suggest that the law reduced fatal accidents but also coincides with an unprecedented deterioration in service quality, multiplying breakdowns and downtime. We exploit a unique data set of more than 3500 elevators over 10 years to investigate the law’s impact. Using a difference-in-difference setting, our results indicate that the law led to a considerable increase in the number of failures and downtime. We also find evidence that the situation was exacerbated by the fact that the higher failure rates were not met by a sufficient increase in maintenance staff.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Chever & Michael Klien, 2018. "Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 20-36, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:regeco:v:53:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11149-017-9346-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11149-017-9346-6
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Safety regulation; Side effect; Quality; Elevators;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General

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