 Foreign Ownership and Occupational Safety: Evidence from FranceBeata Javorcik, Alessia Lo Turco, Daniela Maggioni and Gianluca Santoni No 20470, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research Abstract: One in nine workers worldwide experiences a non-fatal occupational accident, with nearly 750,000 French workers missing multiple workdays due to work-related injuries in 2003 alone. As multinational firms emphasize their superior management practices and ESG commitments, this study investigates whether foreign ownership enhances workplace safety. Using detailed plant-level data from France (2003–2017) and applying recent event study techniques to the full data as well as a matched sample, it finds that foreign acquisitions improve worker safety by reducing accident rates, the proportion of injured employees, and the share of lost workdays. These benefits are primarily driven by a decline in major accidents among blue-collar workers. The safety improvements coincide with post-acquisition organisational changes within the plant and the firm, including a higher ratio of hours worked by technical middle managers relative to blue-collar workers, an increase in organisational layers, a greater presence of expatriates in middle and top management and enhanced worker training. JEL-codes: F23 F61 I10 J21 (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:cpr:ceprdp:20470 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK. |
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