Minnesota, workers’ compensation

Park merges Minnesota workers compensation claims with survey data from the Minnesota Human Resource Management Practice file, developed at the Industrial Relations Center at the University of Minnesota. He finds that employee participation in decision making lowers the injury claim rate, as our model suggests, but that the reduction is not statistically significant. 

Unlike the Rooney (1992) and Grunberg, Moore, and Greenberg (1996) studies. Park (1997) distinguishes between decision-making participation and financial-returns participation in his study of Minnesota workers compensation claims. Unexpectedly, Park found that employee participation in financial returns increased the injury rate, as did the interaction between financial returns and decision making. That is, as employee participation in the firm s financial returns rose, so did the injury rate, and the injury rate rose even more in firms with employee participation both in the firm s financial returns and in the firm s deci-... 

Real-wage replacement rate was used to capture both wage and expected workers compensation benefit effects on the dependent variable. In accordance with the Minnesota workers compensation law, rate was calculated by the following formula (Mirmesota WC income benefit schedule used 1992 analysis of workers compensation laws, U.S. Chamber of Commerce) ... 

Dependent variable log of nonwork spell in the Minnesota workers compensation system... 

LnRRATE Log of wage replacement rate in Minnesota workers compensation system 4.28 (73.40) 0.19 (14.41) ... 

Likewise, variations in HRM practices may change woiker safety behavior and the firm s safety costs. Consider the time path of injury benefits, shown in Figure 1.1, typical of workers compensation laws in most states—including Minnesota, from which we draw our sample for this study. 

Some 121 firms completed the survey forms, for a sample response rate of 53 percent. The survey consists of 11 sections, covering the general safety record of the company, company and employee characteristics, management culture, human resource practices, safety practices, and safety consultation programs provided by the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MNOSHA) consultation unit. Table 2.1 summarizes the question items included in the 22-page survey. These 121 firms have matched with about 5,125 workers compensation indemnity claims for the years 1990 through 1998— that is, the claims were filed by workers of those 121 firms. Federal employer identification numbers were only available for about 10 percent of fire sample and have proven to be unreliable for matching. Hence, we used the name of... 

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