National Chains and Trends in Retail Productivity Dispersion
September 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-64
Abstract
Productivity dispersion within an industry is an important characteristic of the business environment, potentially reflecting factors such as market structure, production technologies, and reallocation frictions. The retail trade sector saw significant changes between 1987 and 2017, and dispersion statistics can help characterize how it evolved over this period. In this paper, we shed light on this transformation by developing public-use Dispersion Statistics on Productivity (DiSP) data for the retail sector for 1987 through 2017. We find that from 1987 through 2017, dispersion increased between retail stores at the bottom and middle of the productivity distribution. However, when we weight stores by employment dispersion, the middle of the distribution is lower initially and decreases over time. These patterns are consistent with a retail landscape featuring more and more activity taking place in chain stores with similar productivity. Firm-based dispersion measures exhibit a similar pattern. Further investigation reveals that there is substantial heterogeneity in dispersion levels across industries.
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:
market,
sale,
growth,
commerce,
sector,
trend,
inventory,
dispersion productivity,
retailer,
wholesale,
productivity dispersion,
warehouse,
retail,
distribution,
merchandise,
store,
grocery
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Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Total Factor Productivity,
Longitudinal Business Database,
IQR,
Census of Retail Trade,
Economic Census,
North American Industry Classification System,
Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board
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