Abstract
This paper examines how the weakening in corporate governance affects workplace safety. We use anti-takeover laws in the US in the 1980s as a source of variation in corporate governance. Our measures of workplace safety are the number of violations of OSHA workplace safety regulation, penalties paid for these violations, the number of accidents and employees’ complaints about their workplace safety. We find that firms affected by the regulation presented significantly more workplace safety violations and penalties than otherwise similar firms that were not affected by the regulation. Accidents and complaints tend to decrease as a result of the anti-takeover regulation, but the results are not entirely robust. We also document that the increase in workplace safety violations was significantly smaller in unionized firms. This suggests that unions can play an important role in curbing managerial discretion.