FDA starts light-touch inspections for some imports.

For years, it was believed that the value of inspections is in nding and xing defects early in the development process. Otherwise, the cost to nd and x them later is much higher. However, in examining code inspection data, we are nding that inspections are bene cial for an additional reason. They make the code easier to understand and change. An analysis of data from a recent code inspection ex...

In recent years, remote non-contact NDE techniques have been sought in an effort to improve railroad related inspection operations. More specifically, efforts have been aimed at increasing the inspection coverage and performing dynamic inspections for railroad tracks and wheels. Throughout most of the 20th century, dynamic inspections of railroad tracks have been developed and performed, howeve...

BACKGROUND Management of environmental health issues is an integral part of public health systems. An active integrated environmental health surveillance and response system was developed for the Athens Olympics to monitor and prevent exposure to environmental hazards. The potential for permanent implementation of the program was examined. METHODS The environmental health surveillance and res...

Inspections and testing of indoor environments for mold growth increased dramatically in the past decade. Allergists can now be presented copies of reports and laboratory data and asked to provide an interpretation, although allergists are seldom trained to review environmental data. There is no single sampling method that is both specific for mold growth and robust enough to reliably detect mo...

The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latt...

We study the use of fines and inspections to control production activities that create external damages. The model contains a continuum of firms, differing in their compliance costs, so that only high-cost firms evade the regulations. Modifying the usual Pigou rule for taxing externalities to account for costly inspections, the external damage from the marginal evader’s activities should exceed...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be used and cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions...