|
Article Excerpt
I. INTRODUCTION
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, manufacturing in the United States experienced substantial changes. There was tremendous growth in large-scale enterprises beginning with business consolidation during the trust movement of the 1880s. Technological advances generated substantial economies of scale, and the ensuing need for greater capital accumulation tended to favor large firms. Large firms came to dominate markets in industries such as steel and petroleum. As markets continued this trend into the early 20th century, worker safety became an issue of concern for workers, firms, and the country. Aldrich (1997), for instance, compiled a large amount of information demonstrating managements' increased concern over the issue of worker safety, motivated in some cases out of a desire for good public relations and in others as a profit-maximizing strategy. Fishback and Kantor (1998) found that the rapid spread of worker compensation laws during the early part of the 20th century was the product of coalitions between organized labor, insurers, and even employers who anticipated gains from replacing the existing negligence liability institution with a more structured and predictable legislative structure.
While a number of studies examined the development of worker safety activities by firms and investigated reasons for the development of such regulation, little attention has been given to the potential link between market structure and worker safety incentives. Our study focuses on worker accidents and competition in the U.S. steel industry at the turn of the century. In what follows, we develop a theoretical model demonstrating that increased competition generates greater efforts on the part of a firm to improve its worker safety efforts. An increase in the number of competitors reduces the dominant firm's market share, increasing incentives to seek and adopt cost-reducing strategies so as to mitigate profit losses, such as labor accident costs. Empirical analysis supports this result.
The existence and importance of a link between accidents and market structure have surfaced in several venues other than worker safety. While not entirely parallel to the turn-of-the-century steel industry, one might consider, for instance, the airline industry and its deregulation in 1978. Some argued at the time that the benefits of deregulation, primarily lower fares prompted by entry into the industry, would be offset by reductions in safety as increases in the number of flights could lead to increases in air congestion and airplane accidents. Risks would further increase as aggressive competition and tighter profit margins would prompt airlines to cut maintenance and equipment upgrade expenditures to unsafe levels. However, data presented in Kaplan (1986) and Walters (1993) show that fatal airline accidents actually decreased after deregulation. Moreover, in an investigation of the relationship between various measures of industry structure and the frequency of environmental accidents across a variety of manufacturing industries in the United States, Decker and Wohar (2006) found that higher accident rates are strongly associated with higher levels of industry concentration. Therefore, more competition is associated with fewer accidents.
We explore this relationship from a historical perspective, investigating the relationship between worker accident rates and the competitive environment in the United States' steel industry between 1907 and 1939. Since this industry was dominated by U.S. Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel), we focus particular attention on it (see below). Indeed, visual observation of the relationship between worker accident rates and firm market share highlights a compelling relationship. Utilizing market share data for U.S. Steel ingot production over time from 1901 to 1939 given by McCraw and Reinhardt (1989) as well as Schroeder (1953) and U.S. Steel injury rates published in Aldrich (1997), Figure 1 shows that there does appear to be a direct positive correlation between the company's market share and its worker accident rates. Indeed, there is an 85% correlation between U.S. Steel's market share and accident rates over the 1907-1939 period.
While this is striking, there are many other variables that could explain declining worker injury rates. To establish a credible relationship between these two variables requires (a) a theoretical foundation, consistent with profit-maximizing behavior, linking accidents with market share, and (b) empirical validation of the relationship. After controlling for other factors such as unionization rates, production levels, number of workers, and others, our empirical findings show that a lower market share results in lower worker injury rates, leading us to conclude that worker safety benefited from increased competition. (2)
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: in Section II, we present a brief discussion of the state of the United States' steel industry with special attention to worker safety issues. In Section III, we develop a theoretical model relating worker accident rates to industry structure. In Sections IV and V, we present the empirical model, data, and related econometric issues. In Section VI, we present the empirical results, and in Section VII, as a robustness check on these results, we focus more broadly on the steel industry as a whole. In Section VIII, we conclude and offer suggestions for future research.
II. STEEL INDUSTRY STRUCTURE AND HISTORY
In 1901, U.S. Steel was chartered, the result of the consolidation of eight substantial steel manufacturers. As the first billion-dollar company in the United States, it commanded a market share of 66% of steel ingot production in 1901, according to Schroeder (1953) and McCraw and Reinhardt (1989). Given U.S. Steel's leadership position in this industry, it seems reasonable to characterize competition via a dominant firm model, at least over the first four decades of the 20th century. Indeed, Yamawaki (1985) tested pricing in the steel industry from 1907 to 1930 and concluded that it was consistent with dominant firm analysis. Furthermore, Scherer (1996) also presents evidence strongly supporting the application of the dominant firm model to the steel industry during the period under consideration here. However, U.S. Steel's market share was not secure, shrinking substantially between 1901 and 1939 due in part to entry into the market. According to Schroeder's (1953) study, throughout the first four decades of the 20th century, U.S. Steel faced increased competition from a number of new and growing producers such as Bethlehem Steel Corp., Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., National Steel Corp., Wheeling Steel Corp., Sharon Steel Corp., and Pittsburgh Steel Company.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
At the turn of the century, U.S. Steel was clearly the major manufacturer in the industry and, as Aldrich (1997, 93) points out, the leading firm in accident prevention. In May 1910, U.S. Steel was the first to implement a worker safety program by introducing its voluntary accident relief program. Their model became the blueprint for other businesses, both in and out of the steel industry. According to Aldrich (1997, 129), over the next few years other steel companies such as Armco, Bethlehem, Commonwealth, Inland, Jones and Laughlin, Lukens, Midvale, and Youngstown introduced similar measures. As Schroeder (1953, 70) points out, as early as 1913 Armco attempted to reduce accident rates through adjustments to workday length and other experiments.
Indeed, contemporary commentary reinforces this. For instance, Chaney (1929, 4) noted the industry's leadership role in the implementation of safety measures:
That accidents can be prevented by an intelligent study of the situation, ..., is well illustrated by the record of the iron and steel industry.... In 1910, before the accident situation was brought forcibly to the attention of the officials in that great industry through the computing and classification of accident rates, the workers were being killed and injured at the rate of 74.7 for every million man-hours of exposure, and for every thousand hours of exposure 7.2 days were being lost on account of disabling accidents. This was, of course, recognized as a serious economic loss that should be prevented. A definite safety policy was inaugurated and has been consistently maintained and rigorously enforced throughout the years, resulting in material, though intermittent, decrease in accident rates ...
Steel industry concern over worker safety during the early part of the 20th century can be understood, in part, because significant changes in production and operations occurred in the latter part of the 19th century and steel plants became increasingly dangerous places to work. The increased danger has been linked to dramatic expansion in the size of productive operations. In particular, as Aldrich (1997, 87-89) discusses, growth in the scale of blast furnaces and increased mechanization contributed to increased worker accident risk. Blast furnace size increased rapidly, particularly in height, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. These furnaces tended to be top-heavy, and with increases in blast rates to meet heightened production demands, there were more instances of accidental spills and/or explosions.
The steel manufacturing industry experienced increased mechanization as well. According to Schroeder (1953), the steel industry's fixed asset expenditure, much of which as investment in mechanization, increased 120% between 1907 and 1939 (about 2.58% per year), whereas labor increases over the same period were 85% (or 2.02% per year). Correspondingly, accident risks increased. Mechanical coal loaders and steel rolling equipment, for instance, led to increases in severe accident rates. According to Aldrich (1997, 88), in 1910 death rate linked to mechanical rolling devices was twice that from the older "hand-rolling" operations. (3)
Moreover, simply employing larger steel plants was generally believed to make control of on-the-job accidents harder. Larger plants often meant a large number of unguarded walkways and stairs set several feet above the factory floor, resulting in many, of ten fatal, falls. In addition, boilers, belts, pulleys, steel presses, grinding wheels, and other pieces of machinery often had no guard plates around them, leaving workers prone to...
|
