Abstract
Safety performance can vary widely across firms, even in high-risk industries subject to strict regulatory standards. Using administrative data from US nuclear power plants, we study the relationship between regulatory inspectors’ assignment and safety outcomes. We find that less experienced inspectors are more likely to be assigned to nuclear facilities located farther from regulatory offices. This spatial sorting has meaningful economic consequences: doubling inspector experience is associated with 0.3 percentage points lower emergency training scores at the supervised facilities, corresponding to avoided revenue losses of approximately USD 1.2 billion annually for the whole industry.