I estimate the aggregate income elasticity of Wal-Mart's and Target's revenues using quarterly data for 1997-2006. I find that Wal-Mart's revenues increase during bad times, whereas Target's revenues decrease, consistent with Wal-Mart selling "inferior goods" in the technical sense of the term....

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world, yet little is known about its economic impact. This essay discusses what is known about Wal-Mart's competitive advantage and its economic impact on local communities, as well as the national and global economy, and highlights the open questions to be...

We analyze the effect of Wal-Marts entry into the grocery market using a unique store-level price panel data set. We use OLS and two IV specifications to estimate the effect of Wal-Marts entry on competitors prices of 24 grocery items across several categories. Wal-Marts price advantage over...

This paper estimates the effect of Wal-Mart expansion on retail employment at the county level. Using an instrumental-variables approach to correct for both measurement error in entry dates and endogeneity of the timing of entry, I find that Wal-Mart entry increases retail employment by 100 jobs...

Retail chains and imports from developing countries have grown sharply over the past 25 years. Wal-Marts chain, which currently accounts for 10% of U.S. imports from China, grew 10-fold and its sales 90-fold over this period, while U.S. imports from China increased 30-fold. We relate these...

This note examines the instrumental variables method used by Neumark, Zhang, and Ciccarella (2005) to analyze Wal-Mart's effect on retail labor markets, and exposes major flaws in that methodology. Neumark, Zhang, and Ciccarella use an interaction between distance from Wal-Mart's headquarters...

Retail chains and the volume of imports of consumer goods from developing countries have grown sharply over the past 25 years. Wal-Marts sales, which currently account for 15% of U.S. imports of consumer goods from China, grew 90-fold over this period, while U.S. imports from China increased...

I quantify the price effect of a low-cost entrant on retail prices using a case-study approach. I consider the effect of Wal-Mart entry on average city-level prices of various consumer goods by exploiting variation in the timing of store entry. The analysis combines two unique data sets, one...