| Popis: |
Beginning in 2003, the USDA s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) embarked on a series of changes to the regulations regarding testing of chicken carcasses for Salmonella and permissible test outcomes. In particular, FSIS announced in 2003 that regulations would soon change; tightened the standard in 2006, and publicly reported the names of plants with poor performance starting in 2008. This article examines the effects of this series of regulatory changes on Salmonella test outcomes for young-chicken slaughter plants. We find that, while public disclosure of information improved Salmonella test outcomes, the effects were relatively homogeneous across well-performing and poorly-performing plants. The announcement of pending regulatory change in 2003 had a strong effect on the poorest-performing plants. We conclude that buyers failure to fully unravel information about chicken plants and other market mechanisms (such as contractual requirements) may have driven the somewhat surprising results. Acknowledgement |
