The Effect of Franchising on Store Performance: Evidence from an Ownership Change

Jeff Ackermann

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: There is a substantial literature predicting that a franchisee-owned store will generate higher profits than a franchisor-owned store, all else equal. However, attempts to estimate the effect of franchising on store performance are hampered by an important selection issue: the franchisor may choose to assign the least desirable locations to franchisees. I overcome this issue by using a 2007 corporate sale that resulted in all franchisor-owned Applebee’s stores in Texas being sold to franchisees as a source of exogenous variation. While I do not observe store profits, Texas makes store-level alcohol sales data available for all bars and restaurants that have a liquor license; I use alcohol revenues as a proxy for store performance. I first find evidence that both observable and unobservable location-level factors were important in Applebee’s decision to own or franchise a store prior to the corporate sale. I next create a structural demand model which uses consumer and store locations to predict alcohol sales for all liquor-selling bars and restaurants in Texas over a 10-year period. Using this model, I find that franchising an Applebee’s store increases its alcohol revenues by 7 percent. I also find that franchising a store produces a consumer utility gain comparable to a 2.8-mile reduction in distance from the individual’s home to the store.

Keywords: Franchising; vertical relationships; spatial competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L0 L1 L2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-20
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:76185

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