High temperatures and workplace injuries

Matteo Picchio and Jan C. van Ours

No 19428, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: High temperatures can have a negative effect on workplace safety for a variety of reasons. Discomfort and reduced concentration caused by heat can lead to workers making mistakes and injuring themselves. Discomfort can also be an incentive for workers to report an injury that they would not have reported in the absence of heat. We investigate how temperature affects injuries of professional tennis players in outdoor singles matches. We find that for men injury rates increase with ambient temperatures. For women, there is no effect of high temperatures on injuries. Among male tennis players, there is some heterogeneity in the temperature effects, which seem to be influenced by incentives. Specifically, when a male player is losing at the beginning of a crucial (second) fourth set in (best-of-three) best-of-five matches, the temperature effect is much larger than when he is winning. In best-of-five matches, which are more exhausting, this effect is age-dependent and stronger for older players.

Keywords: Climate change; Temperature; Tennis; Injuries; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 Q51 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19428 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: High temperatures and workplace injuries (2024)
Working Paper: High Temperatures and Workplace Injuries (2024)
Working Paper: High temperatures and workplace injuries (2024)
Working Paper: High temperatures and workplace injuries (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19428

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19428

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().