Sinking the blues: the impact of shop closing hours on labor and product markets

Goos, Maarten (2004) Sinking the blues: the impact of shop closing hours on labor and product markets. CEPDP, 664. Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. ISBN 0753018047

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Abstract

There is a growing consensus among economists that extending shop opening hours creates jobs. While this is probably true in deregulating industries, this paper argues there are some deficiencies in the existing hypotheses about how exactly deregulation affects employment. First, this paper exploits recent changes in Sunday Closing Laws in the US to find that total employment, total revenue and the number of shops increase in deregulating industries and possibly decrease in non-deregulating industries. Second, a model assuming consumers like shopping on Sunday, monopolistic competition and low barriers to entry is presented to show how consumer behavior and retail competition can explain the observed impact of deregulation on retail labor and product markets and therefore ultimately employment.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	http://cep.lse.ac.uk
Additional Information:	© 2004 Maarten Goos
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Shop opening hours, labor demand, organization of retail markets
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Journal of Economic Literature Classification System:	L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L81 - Retail and Wholesale Trade; Warehousing; e-Commerce L - Industrial Organization > L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance > L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J23 - Employment Determination; Job Creation; Demand for Labor; Self-Employment
Sets:	Collections > Economists Online Research centres and groups > Centre for Economic Performance (CEP)
Rights:	http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/rights/LSERO.htm
Identification Number:	664
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/19925/

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