The Use of Scanner Data for Economics Research

Pierre Dubois, Rachel Griffith and Martin O'Connell

No 16954, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The adoption of barcode scanning technology in the 1970's gave rise to a new form of data; scanner data. Soon afterwards researchers began using this new resource, and since then a large number of papers have exploited scanner data. The data provide detailed price, quantity and product characteristic information for completely disaggregate products at high frequency and typically either track a panel of stores and/or consumers. Their availability has led to advances, inter alia, in the study of consumer demand, the measurement of market power, firms' strategic interactions and decision-making, the evaluation of policy reforms, and the measurement of price dispersion and inflation. In this article we highlight some of the pro and cons of this data source, and discuss some of the ways its availability to researchers has transformed the economics literature.

Keywords: Scanner data; Demand estimation; market power; Policy counterfactual; Inflation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C80 D12 D22 E31 L10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16954 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: The Use of Scanner Data for Economics Research (2022)
Working Paper: The Use of Scanner Data for Economics Research (2022)
Working Paper: The Use of Scanner Data for Economics Research (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16954

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16954

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().