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E-Tailing and its Prospects: Great Expectations Reconsidered
July 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-16
This paper attributes slower than predicted growth in e-commerce retailing to four factors: consumer resistance; the ability of traditional retailers to become multi-channel sellers; prudent official survey and classification practices; and perhaps the limited range of 'pure-play' business models (i.e., retail models that rely mainly on electronic sales). Based on responses to the Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS) in the five fourth quarter periods from 2001 to 2005, the paper finds that e-commerce has claimed a small but rapidly growing share of U.S. retailing markets; and that pure play companies are still important drivers of this process. However, it also finds that the capacity of pure-play companies to continue in this role may be nearing its limits, and that the rate of continued growth in e-commerce retailing may depend on the business decisions of large, multi-channel sellers. Qualified researchers can access MRTS-based quarterly e-commerce data for 2001-2005 at the Census Bureau's Regional Data Centers.
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The Role of Retail Chains: National, Regional, and Industry Results
December 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-30
We use the establishment level data in the Longitudinal Business Database to measure changes in market structure in the U.S. Retail Trade sector during the period, 1976 to 2000. We use firm ownership information to construct measures of firm entry and exit and also to categorize four types of retail firms: single location, and local, regional, and national chains. We use detailed location data to examine market structure in both national and county markets. We summarize the county level results into three groups: metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural. We find that retail activity is increasingly occurring at establishments owned by chain firms, especially large national chains. On average, we find that all types of retail firms are increasing in size during the period. We also find that larger markets experience more firm turnover. Finally, we see that entry and exit rates vary across two-digit retail industries.
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The Myth of Decline: A New Perspective on the Supply Chain and Changing Inventory-Sales Ratios
October 2004
Working Paper Number:
CES-04-18
There is a widely held perception that improved supply chain practices and new technologies have led to declines in the inventory-sales ratio. Our empirical analyses of 87 inventory-sales ratios in 45 manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and retail trade industries casts doubt on assumptions of widespread declines in these ratios. We find that less than half of the ratios showed statistically significant declines during the 12 year period from January 1992 through December 2003. Information technology may indeed have improved inventory management, but this improvement is not reflected in inventory-sales ratio data for many U.S. industries. Our detailed case study of the pharmaceutical supply chain also offers additional insights by showing how relevant technological investments led to an extended period in which inventory-to-sales ratios increased.
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The Link Between Aggregate and Micro Productivity Growth: Evidence from Retail Trade
August 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-18
Understanding the nature and magnitude of resource reallocation, particularly as it relates to productivity growth, is important both because it affects how we model and interpret aggregate productivity dynamics, and also because market structure and institutions may affect the reallocation's magnitude and efficiency. Most evidence to date on the connection between reallocation and productivity dynamics for the U.S. and other countries comes from a single industry: manufacturing. Building upon a unique establishment-level data set of U.S. retail trade businesses, we provide some of the first evidence on the connection between reallocation and productivity dynamics in a non-manufacturing sector. Retail trade is a particularly appropriate subject for such a study since this large industry lies at the heart of many recent technological advances, such as E-commerce and advanced inventory controls. Our results show that virtually all of the productivity growth in the U.S. retail trade sector over the 1990s is accounted for by more productive entering establishments displacing much less productive exiting establishments. Interestingly, much of the between-establishment reallocation is a within, rather than betweenfirm phenomenon.
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Measuring the Electronic Economy: Current Status and Next Steps
June 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-10
The recent growth of consumer retailing over the Internet draws attention to the electronic economy. However, businesses also conduct other business processes over computer networks, and many have been doing so for some time. Uses of computer networks attract attention because of assertions that they lead to new products and services, new delivery methods, streamlined or re-engineered business processes, new business structures, and enhanced business performance. These changes, in turn, potentially affect the performance of the entire economy, including economic growth, productivity, prices, employment, trade, and the structures of businesses, regions, and markets. Evaluating these assertions, and their effects on economic performance, requires solid statistical information about the electronic economy. This paper develops principles for identifying information critical to measuring the size and evaluating the potential effects of the electronic economy, relates that information to current data collection programs, and notes relevant measurement issues. Some of the required information about the electronic economy can be collected by adding questions to existing surveys, making the scope of existing surveys consistent, or developing new surveys. However, many key pieces of information pose significant challenges to economic measurement. While some of those challenges are specific to the electronic economy, others are long-standing ones. Interest in the electronic economy highlights the importance of continuing attempts to address these challenges. Improving and enhancing the statistical system to provide information about the electronic economy, therefore, would also substantially improve the baseline information available for evaluating the performance of the entire economy.
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Output Price And Markup Dispersion In Micro Data: The Roles Of Producer And Heterogeneity And Noise
August 1997
Working Paper Number:
CES-97-10
This paper provides empirical evidence on the extent of producer heterogeneity in the output market by analyzing output price and price-marginal cost markups at the plant level for thirteen homogeneous manufactured goods. It relies on micro data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures over the 1963-1987 period. The amount of price heterogeneity varies substantially across products. Over time, plant transition patterns indicate more persistence in the pricing of individual plants than would be generated by purely random movements. High-price and low-price plants remain in the same part of the price distribution with high frequency, suggesting that underlying time-invariant structural factors contribute to the price dispersion. For all but two products, large producers have lower output prices. Marginal cost and the markups are estimated for each plant. The markup remains unchanged or increases with plant size for all but four of the products and declining marginal costs play an important role in generating this pattern. The lower production costs for large producers are, at least partially, passed on to purchasers as lower output prices. Plants with the highest and lowest markups tend to remain so over time, although overall the persistence in markups is less than for output price, suggesting a larger role for idiosyncratic shocks in generating markup variation.
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Price Dispersion In U.S. Manufacturing: Implications For The Aggregation Of Products And Firms
March 1992
Working Paper Number:
CES-92-03
This paper addresses the question of whether products in the U.S. Manufacturing sector sell at a single (common) price, or whether prices vary across producers. Price dispersion is interesting for at least two reasons. First, if output prices vary across producers, standard methods of using industry price deflators lead to errors in measuring real output at the industry, firm, and establishment level which may bias estimates of the production function and productivity growth. Second, price dispersion suggests product heterogeneity which, if consumers do not have identical preferences, could lead to market segmentation and price in excess of marginal cost, thus making the current (competitive) characterization of the Manufacturing sector inappropriate and invalidating many empirical studies. In the course of examining these issues, the paper develops a robust measure of price dispersion as well as new quantitative methods for testing whether observed price differences are the result of differences in product quality. Our results indicate that price dispersion is widespread throughout manufacturing and that for at least one industry, Hydraulic Cement, it is not the result of differences in product quality.
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