A methodological proposal to evaluate the cost of duration moral hazard in workplace accident insurance

Abstract

The cost of duration moral hazard in workplace accident insurance has been amply explored by North-American scholars in both the USA and Canada. Given the current context of financial constraints in public accounts and particularly in the Social Security system, we feel that the issue merits inquiry in the case of Spain. The present research also posits a methodological proposal using the econometric technique of stochastic frontiers, which allows us to break down the duration of work-related leave into what we term "economic days" and "medical days". Our calculations indicate that during the seven-year period spanning 2005 to 2011, the cost of sick leave amongst full-time salaried workers amounted to 5,830 million Euros (in constant 2011 Euros). Of this total, and bearing in mind that "economic days" are those attributable to duration moral hazard, over 2,500 million Euros might be linked to workplace absenteeism. It is on this figure where economic policy measures might prove more effective. JEL Classification: J28, J32, I13.

Transformational Leadership and Sick Leave: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…A possible explanation might be that the training enabled leaders to reduce not the frequency, but the duration of long‐term absences of their subordinates via fostering earlier reincorporation. In their study, Martín‐Román and Moral (2017) divided sick leave duration into two parts: medical absence days, which are necessary for the recovery process, followed by economic absence days, during which the employee has a capacity of choice whether to reincorporate sooner or later. Based on social security data, these authors estimated that in Spain between 2005 and 2013, 44.2% of the total sick leave days could be labeled as such economic absence days.…”

Are women breaking the glass ceiling? A gendered analysis of the duration of sick leave in Spain

“…This paper adopts a different and more recent approach based on the stochastic frontier analysis. Although this type of analysis is more common in papers related to production or cost theory, there already exist previous studies that applied it to the duration of sick leave (Martín-Román & Moral, 2014 , 2017 ). In this case, the variable of interest is the days a worker is absent from work due to an occupational accident.…”

“…Economic research is key to understanding sickness absence and its connection with the labor market (Boone & van Ours, 2006 ; Boone et al, 2011 ; Pichler, 2015 ). Workplace injuries have cost the European Union over EUR 460 billion in 2019 (European Commission, 2021 ), and behavioral effects play an important role in explaining this cost (Koning et al, 2022 ; Martin-Roman & Moral, 2016 ; Martín-Román & Moral, 2017 ). Despite these figures, the literature examining gender/sex differences in the duration of sick leave is lacking, considering the behavioral response of workers to a set of incentives and focusing on biomedical ex-post (after the injury has been reported) differences between male and female workers.…”

“…To answer the abovementioned research questions, we used the stochastic frontier methodology. This technique allows us to divide the total sick leave duration into two different parts: one associated with physiological factors and one related to behavioral responses of workers to socioeconomic incentives (Martín-Román & Moral, 2014 , 2017 ). We draw the main conclusions obtained in this research by analyzing both components.…”

Influence of contracting conditions on absenteeism

“…This has led to an increase of 6% in comparison with 2016. The increased cost of absenteeism, added to the personal and social repercussions it can have on organisations, has meant its control is one of the primary strategic objectives of any business, region or state (Martin-Fumadó, Martí Amengual, Puig Bausili, & Arimany-Manso, 2014;Martín-Román, & Moral, 2017).…”