Income inequality and product variety: Empirical evidence

Dieter Pennerstorfer, Nora Schindler, Christoph Weiss and Biliana Yontcheva

No 353, DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)

Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between income inequality and firms' locations and product choices. Using detailed information on income at a regionally disaggregated level and individual data on Austrian restaurants, we demonstrate that firm conduct crucially depends on the distribution (in addition to the level) of income. Local markets with higher income inequality are characterized by a larger number of firms, offering a broader range of products and product variants that are on average less common. These findings indicate that local demand is substantially in uenced by the heterogeneity in consumers' income endowments, resulting in large differences in product variety.

Keywords: income inequality; product variety; product differentiation; firm conduct; restaurants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 L22 L83 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ore
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Income Inequality and Product Variety: Empirical Evidence (2022)
Working Paper: Income Inequality and Product Variety: Empirical Evidence (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:dicedp:353

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