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Digitizing Disclosure: The Case of Restaurant Hygiene Scores

  • Weijia Dai
  • Michael Luca
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 12, no. 2, May 2020
(pp. 41-59)
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Abstract

Collaborating with Yelp and the City of San Francisco, we revisit a canonical example of quality disclosure by evaluating and helping to redesign the posting of restaurant hygiene scores on Yelp.com. We implement a two-stage intervention that separately identifies consumer response to information disclosure and a disclosure design with improved salience—a consumer alert. We find score posting is effective, but improving salience further increases consumer response.

Citation

Dai, Weijia, and Michael Luca. 2020. "Digitizing Disclosure: The Case of Restaurant Hygiene Scores." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 12 (2): 41-59. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20180293

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • D18 Consumer Protection
  • D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
  • L83 Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
  • L88 Industry Studies: Services: Government Policy
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