External economic incentives for prevention

Introduction

Economic incentives in occupational safety and health (OSH) describe processes that reward organisations for safe and healthy workplaces. From a European perspective, incentives are seen as an effective tool complementary to OSH regulation aimed at encouraging businesses at the management level to provide good OSH. Tax or insurance premium reductions are common examples. A range of economic incentive schemes can be classified along two lines: First, according to the source issuing the incentive, i.e., public governmental authorities or workers’ compensation insurers, and second, according to the mode of operation, i.e., result-based or effort-based…