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Do Checklists Make a Difference? A Natural Experiment from Food Safety Enforcement
Author(s) -
Ho Daniel E.,
Sherman Sam,
Wyman Phil
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of empirical legal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1740-1461
pISSN - 1740-1453
DOI - 10.1111/jels.12178
Subject(s) - checklist , recall , protocol (science) , law enforcement , natural experiment , enforcement , manifesto , psychology , significant difference , political science , law , actuarial science , business , public economics , economics , cognitive psychology , statistics , medicine , mathematics , alternative medicine , pathology
Inspired by Atul Gawande's bestselling Checklist Manifesto , many commentators have called for checklists to solve complex problems in law and public policy. We study a unique natural experiment to provide the first systematic evidence of checklists in law. In 2005, the Public Health Department of Seattle and King County revised its health code, subjecting half of inspection items to a checklist, with others remaining on a free‐form recall basis. Through in‐depth qualitative analysis, we identify the subset of code items that remained substantively identical across revisions, and then apply difference‐in‐differences to isolate the checklist effect in more than 95,000 inspections from 2001–2009. Contrary to scholarly and popular claims that checklists can improve the administration of law, the checklist has no detectable effect on inspector behavior. Making a violation more salient by elevating it from “noncritical” to “critical” status, however, has a pronounced effect. The benefits of checklists alone are considerably overstated.