Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy

Edward L. Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Kominers and Michael Luca

American Economic Review, 2016, vol. 106, issue 5, 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.

JEL-codes: D82 D86 H75 I11 I18 R51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161027
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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Working Paper: Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy (2016)
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