Digitizing Disclosure : The Case of Restaurant Hygiene Scores

Restaurant hygiene scores have become a success story of public disclosure of government inspections. Disclosing hygiene scores has the potential to be a powerful market mechanism that can help consumers make better decisions while also creating incentives for restaurants to improve their performance. Yet in most cities, hygiene scores go unnoticed on government websites with no standardized format across cities. This paper documents the design and implementation of an initiative to digitize hygiene score disclosure and analyzed its impact on consumer demand and restaurant hygiene performance. The initiative aims at increasing awareness of hygiene by leveraging digital platforms where consumers are already looking for restaurant information