IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v13y2021i4p285-324.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of Speed: The Electrification of the Streetcar System and the Decline of Mom-and-Pop Stores in Boston, 1885–1905

Author

Listed:
  • Wei You

Abstract

Small firms dominated the American economy in the nineteenth century, and they still dominate in many developing economies today. This paper tests whether geographic market segmentation due to underdeveloped intracity transportation technology precludes the emergence of large retail/wholesale stores. I exploit the natural experiment of Boston's rapid electrification from its previous horse-drawn streetcar system, which occurred between 1889 and 1896. Analyzing newly digitized data, I find that rail-connected locations experienced a sharp decline in the share of sole proprietorships among food retail/wholesale establishments after the electrification relative to off-rail locations. Changes in market access due to streetcar electrification can explain this effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei You, 2021. "The Economics of Speed: The Electrification of the Streetcar System and the Decline of Mom-and-Pop Stores in Boston, 1885–1905," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 285-324, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:285-324
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20180795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180795
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E119371V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180795.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180795.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/app.20180795?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation
    • N71 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N91 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:285-324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.