 Should the Daylight Saving Time be abolished? Evidence from work accidents in ItalyEconomic Modelling, 2023, vol. 128, issue C Abstract: The European Union (EU) is considering abolishing Daylight Saving Time (DST), i.e. the two-phase time arrangement that shifts back and forth the clock time. I estimate the causal effect of DST on accidents at work using administrative data from Italy between 2013 and 2017. Exploiting a Regression Discontinuity design, I find asymmetric results. The number of injuries increases by 2% in the first three days after the introduction of DST, but the effect vanishes afterwards; neither disabilities nor deaths are affected. When leaving DST, the number of injuries decreases by more than 10% and disabilities by a smaller amount; these effects vanish after one week. The effects of DST, including asymmetry, depend on sleeping behaviour and ambient light. The asymmetric results imply that monetary savings from a smaller number of injuries will be lost if the EU repeals the two-phase time arrangement; however, these advantages are tiny and short-lived. Keywords: Daylight saving time; Work accident; Policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:128:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323003322 DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106520 Access Statistics for this article Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.