Description/Abstract
Grading schemes are an increasingly common method of quality disclosure for public services. Restaurant grading makes information about food safety practices more readily available and may reduce the prevalence of foodborne illnesses. However, it may also have meaningful financial repercussions. Using fine-grained administrative data that tracks food safety compliance and sales activity for the universe of graded restaurants in New York City and its bordering counties, we assess the aggregate financial effects from restaurant grading. Results indicate that the grading policy, after an initial period of adjustment, improves restaurants’ food safety compliance and reduces fines. While the average effect on revenues for graded restaurants across the municipality is null, the graded restaurants located geographically closer to an ungraded regime experience slower growth in revenues. There is also evidence of revenue convergence across graded and ungraded restaurants in the long-term.
Document Type
Working Paper
Date
Spring 4-2017
Keywords
Public Grades, Restaurant Revenues, Public Resources, Financial Repercussions, Restaurant Grading
Language
English
Series
Working Papers Series
Disciplines
Economics | Finance | Health Policy | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
ISSN
1525-3066
Recommended Citation
Meltzer, Rachel; Rothbart, Michah W.; Schwartz, Amy Ellen; Calabrese, Thad; Silver, Diana; Mijanovich, Tod; and Weinstein, Meryle, "What are the Financial Implications of Public Quality Disclosure? Evidence from New York City’s Restaurant Food Safety Grading Policy" (2017). Center for Policy Research. 234.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/234
Accessible PDF version
Source
Local input
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Additional Information
Working paper no. 202
The authors gratefully acknowledge contributions from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the NYC Department of Finance, and financial support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Special thanks to Dan Kass, Wendy McKelvey, Bryan Jacobson, Melissa Wong, Corinne Schiff, Karen Schlain, Zachary Papper, Steven Robinson, William Raleigh and James Stevens.