Public and Private Workers' Compensation Insurance

It is found that public firms appear to provide workers' compensation insurance more efficiently than private firms.

Abstract

Utilizing unique data from the federal government's Social Security office, we analyze the costs of providing workers' compensation by public vs private insurers. Our analysis has the advantage that public and private recipients are likely to be more similar than public (Medicare, Medicaid) and private recipients of health insurance in the US or Canadian economies. We find that public firms appear to provide workers' compensation insurance more efficiently than private firms.