Customer-Employee Substitution: Evidence from Gasoline Stations*
January 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-45R
Abstract
We document the adoption of self-service pumps in U.S. gasoline stations from 1977 to 1992. Using establishment-level data from the Census of Retail Trade over this period, we show that self-service stations employ approximately one quarter fewer attendants per pump, all else equal. The work done by these attendants has shifted to customers, biasing upwards conventional measures of productivity growth.
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:
demand,
market,
utilization,
sale,
commerce,
employee,
employed,
labor,
retailer,
economic census,
consumer,
customer,
retailing,
retail,
outsourcing,
trends labor,
grocery
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Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Ordinary Least Squares,
Total Factor Productivity,
County Business Patterns,
Federal Trade Commission,
Current Population Survey,
Longitudinal Business Database,
Retirement History Survey,
Retail Trade,
Census of Manufacturing Firms,
Census of Retail Trade,
Economic Census,
TFPQ,
George Mason University
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