Inspection Technology, Detection and Compliance: Evidence from Florida Restaurant Inspections
Jungmin Lee and Ginger Jin
,
4
(
45
)
RAND Journal of Economics
885-917
December
2014
Abstract
Many regulations mandate that government employees inspect economic entities on a regular basis. In this paper, we show that a small innovation in inspection technology can make substantial differences in inspection outcomes. For restaurant hygiene inspections, the state of Florida has introduced a handheld electronic device, the portable digital assistant (PDA), which reminds inspectors of about 1,000 potential violations that may be checked for.