Assessing the Gains from E-Commerce

Paul Dolfen, Liran Einav, Peter J. Klenow, Benjamin Klopack, Jonathan Levin, Laurence Levin and Wayne Best

No 25610, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: E-Commerce represents a rapidly growing share of consumer spending in the U.S. We use transactions-level data on credit and debit cards from Visa, Inc. between 2007 and 2017 to quantify the resulting consumer surplus. We estimate that E-Commerce spending reached 8% of consumption by 2017, yielding consumers the equivalent of a 1% permanent boost to their consumption, or over $1,000 per household. While some of the gains arose from saving travel costs of buying from local merchants, most of the gains stemmed from substituting to online merchants. Higher income cardholders gained more, as did consumers in more densely populated counties.

JEL-codes: L81 L86 O33 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-pay
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Published as Paul Dolfen & Liran Einav & Peter J. Klenow & Benjamin Klopack & Jonathan D. Levin & Larry Levin & Wayne Best, 2023. "Assessing the Gains from E-Commerce," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, vol 15(1), pages 342-370.

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