Research On Work-related Injury Prevention Regulation Reform In China

Work-related injury prevention regime has formed a basic reality that fully assumes the responsibility of enterprises over a hundred years of development and evolution.The government encourages enterprises to take preventive measures by implementing the mechanism of insurance premium rate and occupational safety and health projects,which promoting the safe production of enterprises and protect the safety and health of employees.The practical experience of all countries shows that work-related injury prevention regulation has achieved great social security benefits.As a developing country with the largest working population,the Chinese government has been actively engaged in work-related injury prevention regulation and protected workers'safety rights.In 2003,work-related injury insurance regulation that was issued marked the formation of the"trinity"work-related insurance system that consists of work-related injury prevention,workers'compensation and work-related injury rehabilitation.Workers'compensation can get over the defect that relies on labor market to cannot compensate worker to suffer risk loss completely,which ensuring medical treatment and basic livelihood of injured workers.At the same time,the government set up insurance premium rate mechanism to stimulate the enterprise's internal impetus,which changing the enterprise's injury prevention concept.In2017,the total number of work-related accidents and deaths in China had dropped by 16.2%and 12.1%⁽¹⁾on the previous year.The accumulated balance of the work-related injury insurance fund reached 160.7 billion yuan,covering 227.42million people and the level compensation was steadily raised⁽²⁾.However,economic globalization,technological innovation and intense competition among enterprises has led to high work pressure.As a result,Chinese workers still face a severe work-related injury risk situation with the high accident rate and occupational morbidity rate.The landscape of occupational safety and health is changing.Long term stable labor relations are broken and a large number of flexible workers are excluded from the work-related injury insurance coverage.Slack labor union organization cannot form the social force that negotiates with the enterprise and government.Injured workers enjoy workers'compensation to become more difficult.Especially,in the new circumstances of slowing economic growth,industrial structure adjustment and development mode transformation,a number of backward and over-capacity enterprises are facing merger or even bankruptcy crisis which is testing their ability to pay.For example,enterprises that are in the rise stage of production factor costs periodic must bear a series of economic costs,such as medical treatment,delayed wages,one-time death subsidy and one-time disability subsidy for injured workers after work-related injury accident under the no-fault liability principle,the high work-related injury accident rate will inevitably increase the entity enterprises employment cost.Facing the current situation of incomplete labor security guarantee and enterprises heavy economic burden,the government should not only emphasize the social security benefits brought by work-related injury prevention regulation,but also emphasize the enterprises economic development.In view of this,on the basis of systematic literature review and field investigation,the paper proposes that the work-related injury prevention regulation objective should include improving the occupational safety and health environment and improving the enterprises economic performance.Is it possible for work-related injury prevention regulation to achieve a"win-win"situation in theory?What is the safety effect of work-related injury prevention regulation in China that has not achieved a"win-win"situation?How does the non-win-win situation of work-related injury prevention regulation affect the enterprises economic performance?Is it possible for China's work-related injury prevention regulation to achieve a win-win situation?How to achieve the"win-win"situation by improving the work-related injury prevention regulation efficiency?These problems are the key core of the work-related injury prevention development that related to the regulation regime sustainable development and is great significance to the future government policy regulation.In order to answer these questions,the paper followed the social regulation economics theory to explore the"win-win"work-related injury prevention regulation mechanism--seeking the"win-win"regulation theory possibility in reality--China's regulation as a sample of empirical test--deepen the reform to realize the"win-win"work-related injury prevention regulation,which closely around the theoretical and empirical research contents.(1)Theory Analyze.Based on the risk wage theory,becker theory and"porter hypothesis"theory.Firstly,the paper explores the reasons for the government's work-related injury prevention regulation reform from the social regulation economics development perspective.Laborers cannot achieve the best guarantee and safety by relying on the market mechanism with incomplete information.In order to correct market failure and protect the injured workers safety rights,the government forces enterprises to assume all responsibilities through work-related injury prevention regulation to ensure the safe work symmetry information between enterprises and workers,so as to maximize social welfare.However,due to the government inappropriate regulation intensity implementation resulting in the overlapping of market failure and government failure,enterprises are dissatisfied with the measures and increasing the economic burden.In order to eliminate the heterogeneity between government and enterprise goals,the government adjusts the work-related injury prevention regulation intensity and stimulates enterprises to form a safety incentive mechanism with achieving a"win-win"situation through the improving their own safety technology.Then,the paper focuses on the current work-related injury prevention regulation system in China from the perspective of social security effect and economic effect to analyze the mechanism of China's regulatory failure to achieve a"win-win"situation.(2)Empirical Analyze.Through theoretical mechanism analysis,the paper finds that the"win-win"key is to set up the appropriate regulation intensity,so as to trigger high-efficiency work-related injury prevention regulation and thus stimulate enterprise safety technology innovation.If the regulation intensity is set too low,the workers safety cannot be fully guaranteed.If the regulation intensity is set too high,enterprises cannot obtain economic benefits from the work-related injury prevention arrangement.The article selects work-related injury insurance rates be designed as the proxy variable of the government regulation strength and take it step by step evaluation of ideas under the"win-win"concept⁽¹⁾,firstly evaluate the safety effect level of work-related injury prevention regulation then the economic performance of enterprises is evaluated,which testing whether the improper China's work-related injury prevention regulation intensity leads to the change of the micro-economic security investment behavior and leads to the decrease of the macro security effect.The paper specific research content is divided into eight parts and the structure is as follows:Chapter 1 Introduction.Firstly,the chapter focus on the research background,purpose and significance.Then,the paper aims at the occupational injury prevention regulation development path as the main line and focuses on trying to reveal the internal logic of the theoretical development chronically,finding the security incentives lead to moral hazard and the enterprise economic burden make government regulation ineffective.After the government's optimal resources,the occupational injury prevention regulation stimulates enterprise safety techno logy innovation that is the fundamental driving force to improve the occupational safety and health environment,while improving the economic performance and comes up with adjustments for sinicization.Finally,gives the article framework,research ideas and methods,possible innovations and deficiencies.Chapter 2 Theoretical mechanism analysis of work-related injury prevention regulation.The chapter firstly clearly identifies the concept of work-related injury prevention regulation and explains its attributes characteristics and implementation approach.Then,the paper based on the risk wage theory,becker theory and"porter hypothesis"theory discusses whether work-related injury prevention regulation is theoretically possible to achieve the"win-win"situation.Finally,through the analysis of safety effect and economic effect,the paper discusses the mechanism of the situation that China's work-related injury prevention regulation fails to achieve the"win-win"situation.(1)Theoretical research on safety effects of work-related injury prevention regulation in China.Based on the production cost theory and the risk expectation theory,the Lagrange function with the maximum profit is established discusses the safety level of workers'compensation under the first order condition of Kuhn-tucker.The result shows that"heavy compensation,light prevention"work-related injury insurance present situation and imperfect work-related injury insurance premium rate mechanism,which does not exist with the lowest workers'compensation to obtain the best safety level.when the government implements low rate regulation,improving the workers'compensation to reduce the impact of work-related injury injury rate is greater than high rate regulation.The enterprise moral hazard is the main reason of low safety effect.(2)Theoretical study on the economic effects of work-related injury prevention regulation in China.Based on the double production theory and"porter hypothesis"theory,the paper applies cost price to solow surplus estimation and discusses the transmission mechanism of work-related injury prevention regulation affecting the enterprises total factor productivity.It is found that the current strict regulation causes enterprises to adjust the labor structure so as to reduce labor costs and the change of total factor productivity growth caused by regulation is the same as the change of cost growth trend.The results show that the change implementation of work-related injury prevention regulation intensity causes the decrease of total factor productivity growth.Chapter 3 Changes,current situation and causes of China's work-related injury prevention regulation reform.The chapter extends the government's prevention indirect market intervention means after work-related injury accident through the workers'compensation mechanism and the prevention before work-related injury accident by setting the work-related injury insurance premium rate mechanism,breaking the inherent work-related injury prevention evolution path.According to the logic of post-accident injury prevention regulation--prevention regulation of ex-accident injury prevention regulation--perfect ex-accident injury prevention regulation,work-related injury prevention regulation is divided into four periods.In the process of interaction between work-related injury prevention regulation and economic development,the paper traces how the government makes enterprises turn from passive to active prevention process and explores the causes of existing prevention regulation inefficiency.The results show that employees face more severe work-related injury risk and enterprises bear heavy economic costs,which makes moral risk prominent.The low level of overall planning and narrow coverage limit the enterprises initiative in prevention.Unreasonable work-related injury prevention incentive mechanism can not form internal motivation."Heavy compensation,light prevention"of work-related injury insurance fund expenditure structure exacerbated the enterprises reluctant to prevent phenomenon.The separation of ex-injury prevention and post-injury prevention is harmful to stimulate enterprise safety technology innovation.The current work-related injury prevention regulation neglecting enterprises economic development,which may be caused by legislation,regulation setting,organizational setting and Inter-organizational connectivity,etc.Chapter 4 China's work-related injury prevention regulation reform efficiency evaluation--based on the safety effect perspective.The paper constructs the comprehensive rate index through the insurance premium rates of different industries and evaluates the high-welfare workers'compensation on the safety effect of reducing the enterprise injury accident rate by using the panel threshold model with a sample of the provincial industry and regional data from 2006 to2016.We find that the government implements weak regulation,high-welfare workers'compensation will significantly reduce the work-related injury rate.However,when the regulated rate exceeds 0.15%,the safety incentive coefficient is no longer significant or even negative effect.Furthermore,analyzing the intrinsic mechanism of low security effect.The enterprise existence moral hazard limits the prevention effect of workers'compensation.The nominal moral hazard cannot eliminate the real moral hazard after the event and aggravates the enterprise moral hazard degree.The results show that the fundamental way to curb the moral hazard led by enterprises is to improve the work-related injury prevention regulation mechanism,stimulate enterprises to innovate safety technology and reduce the cost of paying industrial injury insurance premium and compensating injured workers.At present,the high level of work-related injury insurance rate restrains the enterprises internal safety incentive power and distorts the enterprises safety investment behavior.Reducing the premium rate for work-related injury insurance promotes safe production,helps enterprises reduce labor losses and production costs,and promotes enterprises economic development.If decrease amplitude is too big,workers'compensation cannot rise precaution effect.If decrease amplitude is too small,workers'compensation distort enterprise safe investment behavior again.Appropriate work-related injury insurance rate and workers'compensation level can obtain optimal safe level.Chapter 5 China's work-related injury prevention regulation reform efficiency evaluation--based on the economic effect perspective.The paper uses enterprise level data of industrial listed companies and the China's work-related injury insurance regulations revision as a natural experiment under a standard conditional beta convergence framework to investigate the impact of work-related injury insurance regulation on TFP growth in China's industrial enterprises in 2011.The study shows that the work-related injury insurance law revision during 2007-2014years has strong and negative effect on firm-level TFP growth of the higher work-related enterprises and has no lag effect on firm-level productivity.In three corporate ownership,this revision has the greatest impact on the total factor productivity of state-owned enterprises.This means that the government implements strict regulation,which may increase the enterprises production cost and reduce the TFP growth rate of industrial enterprises after improving the occupational safety and health environment,thus delaying China's industrialization process.It indicates that,at present,the establishment of work-related injury prevention regulation intensity in China results in the heterogeneity of government regulation aims and enterprise aims,which is not conducive to the enterprises technological innovation or the insufficient innovation intensity.Therefore,the government should vigorously promote the work-related injury prevention regulation system construction,which the rate mechanism,reward and punishment mechanism and management supervision system should be improved.On the one hand,it can help to avoid the phenomenon that enterprises avoid participating in insurance or withdrawing insurance in reality.In addition,it can achieve that enterprises can assume social responsibility and improve productivity at the same time.when the internal incentive mechanism of work-related injury insurance interact well with the external economic environment and ensure the sustainable development of work-related injury insurance regulation regime.Chapter 6 Compares and draws lessons from typical national work-related injury prevention regulation reform experience.The paper firstly systematically reviews work-related injury prevention regulation modes in 166 countries and places.We find these modes come in three main forms that the typical German mode with the full participation of workers and employers,the typical Japanese mode with the integration of industrial injury insurance and production safety and the typical American mode with the joint private and public security system prevention have been formed.Then,by studying the three typical countries work-related injury insurance regulation mode,the legal system,incentive mechanism,the advanced experience of management and supervision system.We further finding that The work-related injury insurance regulation legislation is characterized by high level,detailed,operable and dynamic adjustment.External intervention and internal incentive constitute a scientific incentive mechanism of work-related injury insurance regulation.The performance evaluation of work-related injury insurance regulation based on the social security effect and economic analysis and the comprehensive evaluation is made on the formulation of relevant laws,prevention projects,insurance rates and workers'compensation.The establishment and orientation of government organizations,high autonomy degree and strict law enforcement constitute a unified supervision system of work-related injury prevention.It indicates that,attention is the precondition of the efficient government's work-related injury prevention regulation and the perfect legislation is the foundation of the efficient government's work-related injury prevention regulation.Scientific incentive mechanism is the key core of efficient government industrial injury prevention regulation and is the necessary condition to trigger the"win-win"situation.The performance evaluation reflects the operational problems and helps improve the efficiency of work-related injury insurance regulation,which shortening the process of the"win-win"situation.The unified system is the guarantee of the efficient government's work-related injury prevention regulation and the solid foundation for the"win-win"situation.Chapter 7 The optimized path of work-related injury insurance regulation reform in China.In order to achieve the"win-win"work-related injury prevention regulation regime,tying systematically integrate the extensive and complex factors affecting the work-related injury insurance regulation intensity into the comprehensive consideration of the government regulation mechanism on the basis of learning from the typical countries experience.Building a three-dimensional conceptual framework,the paper gives the following suggestions:First,the government should change the work-related injury insurance regulation concept.Th enterprises'willingness,opportunity and ability making technological innovation and the new safety technology and full participation of workers are the preconditions for achieving the"win-win"goal in China.Second,the improvement of legislation,the integration of organizational structure,the accurate establishment of incentive mechanism and the strengthening of supervision system are the basis for achieving the goal of"win-win"China's regulation.Third,by dynamically adjusting workers'occupational safety rights,balancing the internal incentives of different enterprises'sizes,strengthening the macro,middle and micro main responsibilities and creating good external environmental measures,which are the post-guarantee for achieving the goal of"win-win"in China.Chapter 8 Research conclusions and prospects.Summarize the full text and put forward the further research direction.The paper innovation is reflected in the following three aspects:(1)Research content innovation:The paper points out that workers'compensation not only has the function of income redistribution in the traditional sense of compensation for the loss of injured workers,but also have the function of safety incentive to prevent accidents.Bring workers'compensation having the function of safety incentive to prevent accidents into work-related injury prevention that distinguish between ex-work-related and post-work-related injury prevention regulation to expand the work-related injury insurance regulation connotation.Based on the"porter hypothesis"theory,the paper further puts forward that work-related injury insurance regulation should improve the occupational safety and health environment at the same time to improve the enterprises productivity,deepen the work-related injury insurance regulation objectives.In order to achieve the"win-win"goal of injury prevention regulation in China,the government should make full use of the opportunity that enterprises can obtain short-term benefits to realize the transformation of innovation-driven work-related injury prevention regulation mode.Therefore,the paper enriches the theories related to work-related injury insurance regulation and modern economic growth.(2)Research perspective innovation:Firstly,from the macroscopic effect of government regulation,the paper demonstrates the internal mechanism of low safety efficiency and finds that the enterprise moral risk limits the function of industrial injury prevention regulation.Then,based on the micro-economic activities level,the paper describes the relationship between the prevention regulation of protecting human capital safety and the enterprise productivity growth.We find that the growth rate of total factor productivity of enterprises is reduced due to the implementation of regulatory policies,which cannot internalize the work-related injury insurance cost composed of the payment of work-related injury insurance premium and compensation for injured workers'treatment through safety technology innovation in the short term.It is the fundamental reason that distorts the safety investment behavior of enterprises and finally causes the double negative situation of safety effect and economic effect of work-related injury prevention regulation.Through constructing three-dimensional conceptual framework on the basis of macro and micro research,the paper discussing the optimized path of preconditions,basic Settings and post-measures for realizing"win-win"government injury prevention regulation systematically.In order to precisely adjust the incentive mechanism of work-related injury regulation and promote the work-related injury prevention regulation reform in China,so as to ensure the safety of workers and promote the healthy and sustainable economic development of enterprises.(3)Research methods innovation:First,Measure the safety effect of work-related injury insurance regulation.The existing relevant literature is mainly based on the assumption that the larger the enterprise scale is,the higher the rate of work-related injury insurance will be.However,in practice,the work-related injury rate will show nonlinear relationship and interval effect with the degree of government regulation.If the safety effect of workers'compensation in the case of a certain enterprise size or insurance rate is omitted,the estimation result will be biased.Therefore,in order to correct the assumption of enterprise size as the proxy variable of regulated rate,the paper further develops the comprehensive premium rate of work-related injury insurance for different industries,takes it as an agent index of government regulation degree and uses threshold value model to estimate the safety incentive effect of high-welfare workers'compensation on work-related injury accident rate.Second,Measure the economic effect of work-related injury insurance regulation.The cost-benefit method is the best choice to evaluate the work-related injury prevention regulation and the total factor productivity growth of enterprises.However,in practice,it is difficult to directly obtain the cost and benefit measurement values of China's work-related injury insurance regulation,and there may be deviations and omissions in the calculation and selection indicators.Therefore,the dual difference model is selected in the paper to overcome the defects of omitted variables and adverse causality in the cost-benefit method.In order to accurately evaluate the impact of work-related injury prevention regulation on micro-economic performance,a standard conditional beta convergence trend of productivity among enterprises is incorporated into the model and the dual difference model is reconstructed.