Digitization Drives Externalization:The Logic of Reform of Food Service Safety Regulation Modes
The four regulation modes formed by the intertwining of externalization of government functions and digitalization of governance tools,constitute the overall picture of food service safety regulatory change in China,which profoundly affects the style and effectiveness of food safety regulation,but the logic of the change remains to be explained.Analysis of regulatory laws and practices reveals that three major transaction costs,namely regulators'incentive costs,information acquisition costs and penalty implementation costs,constrain the regulatory functions that each regulatory mode can undertake.First,externalization alone(offline food service platforms)or digitization alone(government online platforms)are difficult to undertake substantive regulatory responsibilities due to excessive regulatory incentive costs or information access costs,respectively.Second,the technological convenience and market incentives provided by digital and externalized change-intertwined online food service platforms reduce the three major transaction costs of the regulation of business qualification and business behavior of merchants in the platform,and thus can assume part of the substantive regulatory function transferred by the government.The results show that,in contrast to the traditional technological changes that drive the internalization of government functions,the digitization of food service platforms creates conditions for the externalization of government regulatory functions,forming a new effect of technological change of"digitization-driven externalization".
food safetyregulatory modeexternalization of government functionsdigitalization of governance toolstransaction costs
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