IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v19y1999i6p1113-1125.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stringency of Workplace Air Contaminant Exposure Limits: A Case Study of OSHA Risk Management

Author

Listed:
  • Jahn K. Hakes

Abstract

Political context may play a large role in influencing the efficiency of environmental and health regulations. This case study uses data from a 1989 update of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Permissible Exposure Limits (PELS) program to determine the relative effects of legislative mandates, costly acquisition of information by the agency, and pressure applied by special interest groups upon exposure standards. The empirical analysis suggests that federal agencies successfully thwart legislative attempts to limit agency discretion, and that agencies exercise bounded rationality by placing greater emphasis on more easily obtained information. The 1989 PEL were less significantly related to more costly information, contained “safety factors” for chemicals presenting relatively more ambiguous risks, and the proposed standard stringencies showed evidence of beinginfluenced by vying industry and labor interests.

Suggested Citation

  • Jahn K. Hakes, 1999. "Stringency of Workplace Air Contaminant Exposure Limits: A Case Study of OSHA Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(6), pages 1113-1125, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:19:y:1999:i:6:p:1113-1125
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1999.tb01132.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1999.tb01132.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1999.tb01132.x?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. Van Houtven, George & Cropper, Maureen L., 1996. "When is a Life Too Costly to Save? The Evidence from U.S. Environmental Regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 348-368, May.
    2. Viscusi, W Kip, 1995. "Carcinogen Regulation: Risk Characteristics and the Synthetic Risk Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 50-54, May.
    3. Colin F. Camerer & Howard Kunreuther, 1989. "Decision processes for low probability events: Policy implications," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 565-592.
    4. Cropper, Maureen L. & William N. Evans & Stephen J. Berard & Maria M. Ducla-Soares & Paul R. Portney, 1992. "The Determinants of Pesticide Regulation: A Statistical Analysis of EPA Decision Making," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 175-197, February.
    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. Oscar Rikhotso & Thabiso John Morodi & Daniel Masilu Masekameni, 2021. "Occupational Health Hazards: Employer, Employee, and Labour Union Concerns," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-61, 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. Damian Tago & Henrik Andersson & Nicolas Treich, 2014. "Pesticides and Health: A Review of Evidence on Health Effects, Valuation of Risks, and Benefit-Cost Analysis," Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, in: Preference Measurement in Health, volume 24, pages 203-295, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Zilberman, David & Hochman, Gal & Sexton, Steven E., 2008. "Food Safety, the Environment, and Trade," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper Series 48637, World Bank.
    3. Cropper, Maureen L. & Subramanian, Uma, 1995. "Public choices between lifesaving programs : how important are lives saved?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1497, The World Bank.
    4. Andrew B. Whitford, 2007. "Competing Explanations for Bureaucratic Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(3), pages 219-247, July.
    5. William S. Neilson & Geum Soo Kim, 2001. "A Standard‐Setting Agency and Environmental Enforcement," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(3), pages 757-763, January.
    6. Turaga, Rama Mohana R. & Noonan, Douglas & Bostrom, Ann, 2011. "Hot spots regulation and environmental justice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1395-1405, May.
    7. Peter John Robinson & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Fujin Zhou, 2021. "An experimental study of charity hazard: The effect of risky and ambiguous government compensation on flood insurance demand," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 275-318, December.
    8. Christine Jolls, 2007. "Employment Law and the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 13230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Robert S. Chirinko & Edward P. Harper, 1993. "Buckle up or slow down? New estimates of offsetting behavior and their implications for automobile safety regulation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 270-296.
    10. Ganderton, Philip T. & Brookshire, David S. & McKee, Michael & Stewart, Steve & Thurston, Hale, 2000. "Buying Insurance for Disaster-Type Risks: Experimental Evidence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 271-289, May.
    11. Ando, Amy, 1998. "Delay on the Path to the Endangered Species List: Do Costs and Benefits Matter," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-43-rev, Resources for the Future.
    12. Karen Maguire, 2013. "Drill Baby Drill? Political and Market Influences on Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing in the Western United States," Economics Working Paper Series 1401, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business, revised Apr 2013.
    13. de Jong, Piet & Tickle, Leonie & Xu, Jianhui, 2020. "A more meaningful parameterization of the Lee–Carter model," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1-8.
    14. Yildiz, Özgür, 2014. "Lehren aus der Verhaltensökonomik für die Gestaltung umweltpolitischer Maßnahmen [Lessons from behavioral economics for the design of environmental policy measures]," MPRA Paper 59360, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Stavins, Robert & Hahn, Robert & Cavanagh, Sheila, 2001. "National Environmental Policy During the Clinton Years," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-38, Resources for the Future.
    16. Athanasios Lapatinas & Anastasia Litina & Eftichios Sophocles Sartzetakis, 2014. "Is Abatement Effective in the Presence of Corruption? A Theoretical Exploration," DEM Discussion Paper Series 14-29, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    17. Zilberman, David & Millock, Katti, 1997. "Pesticide Use And Regulation: Making Economic Sense Out Of An Externality And Regulation Nightmare," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Alberini, Anna & Austin, David, 1999. "On and Off the Liability Bandwagon: Explaining State Adoptions of Strict Liability in Hazardous Waste Programs," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 41-63, January.
    19. Ravi Dhar & William Goetzmann, 2005. "Institutional Perspectives on Real Estate Investing: The Role of Risk and Uncertainty," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm457, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jul 2005.
    20. Matthew Turner & Quinn Weninger, 2005. "Meetings with Costly Participation: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 247-268.

    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:wly:riskan:v:19:y:1999:i:6:p:1113-1125. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    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.