Institutional Change, Compensating Differentials, and Accident Risk in American Railroading, 1892—1945

Seung Wook Kim, Price V. Fishback

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

The labor markets in the railroad industry went through extensive institutional changes between 1890 and 1945. Federal laws increased railroad employers’ liability for workplace accidents in several stages. Unions expanded to cover more occupations. The federal government set railroad wages during World War I and then mediated and arbitrated a large number of collective bargaining disputes between 1920 and 1945. We examine how these changes in institutions affected compensating differentials for fatal and nonfatal accident risk. The increasing role of unionization and government intervention coincided with a decline in the size of compensating differentials.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)796-823
Number of pages28
JournalThe Journal of Economic History
Volume53
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1993

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • History
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)

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