Consumer Mobility and the Local Structure of Consumption Industries

Sumit Agarwal (), J. Bradford Jensen () and Ferdinando Monte ()
Additional contact information
Sumit Agarwal: Georgetown University
J. Bradford Jensen: Georgetown University
Ferdinando Monte: Georgetown University

No 2020-006, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: We study local employment, establishment density, and establishment size across industries delivering final consumption, which comprise a substantial fraction of production, shape local amenities, and pay different wages. In a stylized model of consumer mobility, lower industry storability/durability concentrates demand in space, increasing equilibrium employment. Credit card transactions data show that consumer mobility is limited and varies substantially across sectors; moreover, expenditure declines more rapidly with distance in sectors transacted more frequently. Lower storability/durability, proxied by average transaction frequency, increases a sector's local employment via higher establishment density. Variation in consumer mobility is as economically significant as consumers' expenditure shares.

Keywords: equilibrium employment; establishment density; sector employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
Note: MIP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Agarwa ... aphy-consumption.pdf First version, July 14, 2017 (application/pdf)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Agarwa ... sumption_revised.pdf Second version, May 29, 2018 (application/pdf)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Agarwa ... ture-consumption.pdf This version, January 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:hka:wpaper:2020-006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jennifer Pachon ().