State Borders and Public Health

I contribute to the debates on optimal jurisdiction size and federalism through a quasi-natural experiment in the context of US food safety. State borders create fissures in information networks and authority hierarchies. Accordingly, I use the varying extent to which Census-designated metro area populations straddle state borders as the nature-assigned variable; and I show that these fissures prolong foodborne illness outbreaks only in the case of chemically-induced outbreaks---the swiftest category of outbreak. I conclude that policy areas requiring a quick response will tend to benefit from larger jurisdictions but that the benefits can largely be derived by centralizing information without centralizing control.