Empirical study on the safety factors in mining production

After analyzing the accident causation theories and the accident causes sequence of the number of mining occupational deaths, a new production safety index system with six principal items for describing China mining safety production level was constructed. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the level of mining safety production has been improved continuously by more than 18-fold during 1991-2008 in China. To investigate the relationship between six production safety indexes and the number of mining occupational deaths, Granger causality test provides evidence of Granger causality from six production safety factors to the number of mining occupational deaths. There is bidirectional Granger causality running between the number of mining occupational deaths and investment in fixed assets, the result implied that mining enterprises have not understood the importance of initiative increasing investment in fixed assets.