Author(s)

Xueyuan Zhang, Fengwei Sun

Corresponding Author

Xueyuan Zhang

ABSTRACT

China government adopted two distinctly different yet related policies towards the two kind of coal mines in the late 1990s: delegated the key state coalmines to provincial government and shut down the township mines. Along with the regime changes in safety supervision, we find that “neutral collusion” can increase the death rates of key state coalmines significantly, the impact of decentralization on accidents is much larger for native safety governors. “Corrupt collusion” is correlated with an increase in coal mine death rate of township mines, but provinces with native safety governors are correlated with a lower death rate of township mines under the decentralization and shutdown period. The collusions are heterogeneous both in formations and impacts.

KEYWORDS

Coal mine deaths, Neutral collusion, corrupt collusion