Alison D. Morantz
Workplace Health and Safety
How does workplace regulation affect the health and safety of employees? This is the question that preoccupies Alison D. Morantz, whose scholarship zeros in on the real-world impact of occupational safety and health laws. Using the tools of applied microeconomics, Morantz, who holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University, is a new voice in a field where rigorous empirical studies on workplace regulation are scarce.
One issue Morantz has studied extensively is Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) enforcement. Analyzing data from the construction industry, Morantz examined the impact of "devolving" occupational safety and health regulation from the federal government to state governments. As part of her research, she considered the specific deterrent effect of inspections, i.e., how OSHA's visiting a construction site affects that site's future compliance with federal regulations. Her findings, which suggest that state regulation has had mixed results, will appear in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization next year.
Morantz recently broadened this line of inquiry to include the mining industry. Regulated by the federal Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), mining is one of the few industries not policed by OSHA. It is also an area in which there has been limited empirical research. As with her OSHA study, Morantz plans to shed light on ways MSHA can improve enforcement and ultimately prevent accidents.
"We've seen a disturbing number of [mining] tragedies in recent years," she says. "Data analysis could help us learn more about what might be done to prevent them. For example, are multi-fatality accidents predictable or are they just random events? If they're predictable, perhaps we can give regulators the tools to target high-risk mines and prevent such catastrophes before they take place."
Morantz has distinguished herself by using an approach known as "personnel economics." Increasingly used by labor economists since it took root 20 or so years ago, personnel economics involves analyzing private data from individual companies and institutions, rather than highly-aggregated data from public sources. By employing this technique, Morantz hopes to better pinpoint how regulations play out in the lives of workers and affect corporate profitability.
One example of this approach is Morantz's investigation of post-accident drug testing (PADT). Sifting through data from a Fortune 500 retail chain Morantz and researcher Alexandre Mas found that PADT programs can significantly reduce workers' compensation claims, even in workplaces that already use other forms of employee drug testing. In a different project—also involving collaborative partnerships with large companies—Morantz is examining whether replacing workers' compensation with private remedies for on-the-job accidents affects the frequency of injury claims, costs of litigation, and other key policy outcomes.
In addition to her work around health and safety, Morantz is an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) expert. As co-director and principal investigator of the Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution, she is currently pursuing several research projects on community mediation in collaboration with the New York State Unified Court System.
Morantz also has a keen interest in legal history. Her article, There's No Place Like Home: Homestead Exemption and Judicial Constructions of Family in Nineteenth-Century America , won the American Society for Legal History's 2007 Surrency Prize.
Publications
Alison D. Morantz, Has Devolution Injured American Workers? State and Federal Enforcement of Construction Safety, 25 Journal of Law, Economics & Organization (forthcoming 2009).
Alison D. Morantz, Construction Site Regulation and OSHA Decentralization, Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting Industrial Relations Research Association (2003).