Managing major accident risk from a temporal and spatial perspective: A historical exploration of workplace accident risk in China

Using a series of econometric models applied to archival provincial panel data (2008-2014), we conducted a historical analysis of how three common safety governance systems (hard legal instruments, soft informational instruments, and inspections) influenced major workplace accident risk in China. Our results indicate that increases in each of these safety governance systems is associated with reduced local workplace accident risk. However, our analysis identified both positive and negative spillover effects, or how the adoption of safety governance systems in one area predicted changes in workplace accident risk in other provinces. Further, our results indicated that certain safety governance systems were more likely to produce short-term vs. long-term effects on major workplace accident risk in the more developed Eastern provinces compared to the less developed Midwestern provinces. Substantively, we offer both local and central policymakers with insights related to how to reduce major workplace accidents.