Data and Code for: The Evolution of U.S. Retail Concentration

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Dominic Smith, United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Sergio Ocampo, University of Western Ontario

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Data			09/08/2023 06:22:PM
FSRDCPrograms			09/27/2023 09:57:AM
Programs			01/02/2024 08:58:PM
LICENSE.TXT	text/plain	128 bytes	09/08/2023 07:06:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	45.9 KB	09/27/2023 06:20:AM

Project Citation:

Smith, Dominic, and Ocampo, Sergio. Data and Code for: The Evolution of U.S. Retail Concentration. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-12-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/E193702V1

Project Description

Summary: Increases in national concentration have been a salient feature of industry dynamics in the U.S. and have contributed to concerns about increasing market power. Yet, local trends may be more informative about market power, particularly in the retail sector where consumers have traditionally shopped at nearby stores. We find that local concentration has increased almost in parallel with national concentration using novel Census data on product-level revenue for all U.S. retail stores between 1992 and 2012. The increases in concentration are broad based, affecting most markets, products, and retail industries. We show that the expansion of multi-market firms into new markets explains most of the increase in national retail concentration, with consolidation via increases in local market shares increasing in importance between 1997 and 2007, and single-market firms playing a negligible role. Finally, we find that increases in local concentration can explain one-quarter to one-third of the observed rise in retail gross margins.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: retail industry; retail trade; concentration

JEL Classification:
      D43 Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
      L81 Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
      R12 Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1982 – 2012

Universe: Retail establishments in the United States.

Data Type(s): administrative records data; census/enumeration data; program source code

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-12-19]

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