The durable experiment: State insurance of workers' compensation risk in the early Twentieth Century

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700017484
• 发表日期: 1996
• 页码: 809-836
• 关键词: interstate-commerce-act

摘要

In the early 1910s state governments debated the private versus public underwriting. of workers' compensation risk. The choices they made established the existing system today and set the stage for later debates over the government's underwriting of unemployment, health, and disability risks. This article offers both quantitative and case-study analyses of states' original choices between public and private insurance. Monopoly state funds were adopted in some states because of an unusual combination of strong unions and weak insurance and agricultural interests. In other states, the emergence of progressive political coalitions played the decisive role.