Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the "Big Box" Retail Format

Emek Basker, Shawn Klimek () and Van Pham

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This paper documents and explains the recent rise of "big-box" general merchandisers. Data from the Census of Retail Trade for 1977-2007 show that general-merchandise chains grew much faster than specialist retail chains, and that general merchandisers that added the most stores also made the biggest increases to their product offerings. We explain these facts with a stylized model in which a retailer’s scale economies interact with consumer gains from one-stop shopping to generate a complementarity between a retailer’s scale and scope.

Keywords: Retail; chain; big box; superstore; economies of scale; general merchandise; one-stop shopping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L11 L25 L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2008-08, Revised 2011-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2008/CES-WP-08-23R.pdf Revised version, 2011 (application/pdf)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2008/CES-WP-08-23.pdf First version, 2008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the "Big Box" Retail Format (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:08-23

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