We use UK micro data to explore whether planning regulation reduced UK retailing productivity growth between 1997 and 2003. We document a shift to smaller shops, particularly within supermarket chains, following a regulatory change in 1996 which increased the costs of opening large stores. This...

The Maximum Capture problem (MAXCAP) is a decision model that addresses the issue of location in a competitive environment. This paper presents a new approach to determine which store’s attributes (other than distance) should be included in the new Market Capture Models and how they ought to...

A new direction of research in Competitive Location theory incorporates theories of Consumer Choice Behavior in its models. Following this direction, this paper studies the importance of consumer behavior with respect to distance or transportation costs in the optimality of locations obtained by...

The roll-out of Wal-Mart store openings followed a pattern that radiated from the center out with Wal-Mart maintaining high store density and a contiguous store network all along the way. This paper estimates the benefits of such a strategy to Wal-Mart, focusing on the savings in distribution...

This paper analyzes seller choices and outcomes in approximately 700 Internet auctions of a relatively homogeneous good. The ‘Buy it Now’ option allows the seller to convert the auction into a posted price market. We use a structural model to control for the conduct of the auction as well as...

Discussion of "Lumpy Price Adjustments: A Microeconometric Analysis" by Emmanuel Dhyne, Catherine Fuss, Hashem Pesaran, and Patrick Sevestre (2007); Presented at the Spring 2007 Conference of the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Banque De France on "Micro-Data and Macroeconomic Implications," April...

This study examines spatial variation in the price and accessibility of fast food across a major urban area. We use novel data on the price of a representative fast food meal and the location of fast food restaurants belonging to one of three major chains in the District of Columbia and its...

Technology effects, business process development, and productivity growth are considered in the context of a single company: Wal-Mart. The starting point is the 2001 McKinsey Global Institute report, which finds that over 1995-2000, a quarter of U.S. productivity growth is attributable to the...

This paper compares consumers' brand exploration when shopping online versus in a brick-and-mortar store. I use a new scanner dataset to compare the behavior of households shopping online and in-store at the same chain, for identical items and prices. I find that brand exploration is more...

Barcodes and barcode scanners transformed the grocery industry in the 1970s. I use store-level data from the 1972, 1977, and 1982 Census of Retail Trade, matched to data on store scanner installations, to estimate scanners' effect on labor productivity. I find that scanners increased a store's...