American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy
American Economic Review
vol. 106,
no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 114–18)
Abstract
The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to crowdsource competence by making data public and offering a reward for the best algorithm. A simple model suggests that open tournaments dominate consulting contracts when cities can tolerate risk and when there is enough labor with low opportunity costs. We also report on an inexpensive Boston-based restaurant tournament, which yielded algorithms that proved reasonably accurate when tested "out-of-sample" on hygiene inspections.Citation
Glaeser, Edward L., Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers, and Michael Luca. 2016. "Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 114–18. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161027Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D86 Economics of Contract: Theory
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- R51 Finance in Urban and Rural Economies