CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Mom-and-Pop Meet Big-Box: Complements or Substitutes?

September 2009

Working Paper Number:

CES-09-34

Abstract

In part due to the popular perception that Big-Boxes displace smaller, often family owned (a.k.a. Mom-and-Pop) retail establishments, several empirical studies have examined the evidence on how Big-Boxes' impact local retail employment but no clear consensus has emerged. To help shed light on this debate, we exploit establishment-level data with detailed location information from a single metropolitan area to quantify the impact of Big-Box store entry and growth on nearby single unit and local chain stores. We incorporate a rich set of controls for local retail market conditions as well as whether or not the Big-Boxes are in the same sector as the smaller stores. We find a substantial negative impact of Big-Box entry and growth on the employment growth at both single unit and especially smaller chain stores ' but only when the Big-Box activity is both in the immediate area and in the same detailed industry.

Document Tags and Keywords

Keywords Keywords are automatically generated using KeyBERT, a powerful and innovative keyword extraction tool that utilizes BERT embeddings to ensure high-quality and contextually relevant keywords.

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:
market, growth, proprietorship, establishment, metropolitan, retailer, restaurant, retailing, urban, city, neighborhood, suburb, retail, store

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:
Standard Industrial Classification, Ordinary Least Squares, Census Bureau Longitudinal Business Database, Longitudinal Business Database, Retirement History Survey, Wal-Mart, Department of Homeland Security, Kauffman Foundation

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