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Scale and Capacity Limits in Decentralized FDA Food-Safety Enforcement

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  • Guy Tchuente

Abstract

This paper asks whether regulatory monitoring exhibits nonlinear capacity limits as the scale and complexity of the regulated environment increase. Using a county--year panel of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections merged with local establishment counts, we identify a sharp breakpoint: beyond a threshold scale, severe inspection findings rise while inspection effort per establishment flattens or declines. The threshold and the post-break deterioration vary across food-related industry groups and shift with proxies for local density and connectedness, consistent with monitoring becoming ``too big to monitor" in more interconnected production environments rather than driven by simple reallocation or delay. Methodologically, we provide a portable breakpoint selection and piecewise-estimation framework that can be applied to other enforcement settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Guy Tchuente, 2026. "Scale and Capacity Limits in Decentralized FDA Food-Safety Enforcement," Papers 2602.12392, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2602.12392
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yixin (Iris) Wang & George Ball & Gopesh Anand & Hyunwoo Park, 2025. "Obligatory Responses to FDA Inspection Outcomes and Future Drug Shortages," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 789-807, May.
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