IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v80y2015icp329-353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

After work shopping? Employment effects of a deregulation of shop opening hours in the German retail sector

Author

Listed:
  • Paul, Annemarie

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of a deregulation of shop opening laws on employment in the German retail sector. Exploiting the gradual change in the opening times of shops across states and using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, difference-in-differences estimates indicate an average increase in the employment probability, driven by a rise in the likelihood of working marginal part-time hours. Workers in small firms are likely to experience a reduction of their propensity to work. For individuals facing high family-related, supply-side constraints, the change in shop opening hours has opposing effects on employment — positive on lower and negative on upper parts of the hours distribution. Overall, the deregulation is estimated to have raised the likelihood of working fewer hours than desired by the workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul, Annemarie, 2015. "After work shopping? Employment effects of a deregulation of shop opening hours in the German retail sector," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 329-353.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:329-353
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.09.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292115001312
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.09.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morrison, Steven A & Newman, Robert J, 1983. "Hours of Operation Restrictions and Competition among Retail Firms," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(1), pages 107-114, January.
    2. Oz Shy & Rune Stenbacka, 2008. "Price Competition, Business Hours and Shopping Time Flexibility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1171-1195, August.
    3. René Böheim & Mark P. Taylor, 2004. "Actual and Preferred Working Hours," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 42(1), pages 149-166, March.
    4. Altonji, Joseph G & Paxson, Christina H, 1988. "Labor Supply Preferences, Hours Constraints, and Hours-Wage Trade-Offs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(2), pages 254-276, April.
    5. repec:clg:wpaper:2013-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Manning, Alan, 2003. "The real thin theory: monopsony in modern labour markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 105-131, April.
    7. Lazear, Edward P, 1981. "Agency, Earnings Profiles, Productivity, and Hours Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 606-620, September.
    8. Inderst, Roman & Irmen, Andreas, 2005. "Shopping hours and price competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1105-1124, July.
    9. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2003. "Macroeconomic Effects of Regulation and Deregulation in Goods and Labor Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 879-907.
    10. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    11. Euwals, Rob, 2001. "Female Labour Supply, Flexibility of Working Hours, and Job Mobility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages 120-134, May.
    12. Senftleben-König, Charlotte, 2014. "Product Market Deregulation and Employment Outcomes: Evidence from the German Retail Sector," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100539, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Marianne Bertrand & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Does Entry Regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence from the French Retail Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1369-1413.
    14. Ilmakunnas, Seija & Pudney, Stephen, 1990. "A model of female labour supply in the presence of hours restrictions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 183-210, March.
    15. Kahn, Shulamit & Lang, Kevin, 1991. "The Effect of Hours Constraints on Labor Supply Estimates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(4), pages 605-611, November.
    16. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    17. Nooteboom, Bart, 1982. "A new theory of retailing costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 163-186.
    18. Skuterud, Mikal, 2005. "The impact of Sunday shopping on employment and hours of work in the retail industry: Evidence from Canada," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 1953-1978, November.
    19. Mark L. Bryan, 2007. "Free to choose? Differences in the hours determination of constrained and unconstrained workers," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 226-252, April.
    20. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    21. Elbert Dijkgraaf & Raymond Gradus, 2007. "Explaining Sunday Shop Policies," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 207-219, June.
    22. Eva Mörk & Anna Sjögren & Helena Svaleryd, 2013. "Childcare costs and the demand for children—evidence from a nationwide reform," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 33-65, January.
    23. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    24. Jean Kimmel, 1998. "Child Care Costs As A Barrier To Employment For Single And Married Mothers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 287-299, May.
    25. Bossler, Mario & Oberfichtner, Michael, 2014. "The employment effect of deregulating shopping hours: Evidence from German retailing," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100506, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    26. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    27. J. Stephen Ferris, 1990. "The Economics of Regulated Early Closing Hours: Some Evidence From Ontario," Carleton Economic Papers 90-02, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised Aug 1991.
    28. Klerman, Jacob Alex & Leibowitz, Arleen, 1990. "Child Care and Women's Return to Work after Childbirth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 284-288, May.
    29. Goos, Maarten, 2004. "Sinking the blues: the impact of shop closing hours on labor and product markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19925, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    30. Maarten Goos, 2004. "Sinking the Blues: the Impact of Shop Closing Hours on Labor and Product Markets," CEP Discussion Papers dp0664, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    31. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    32. Euwals, Rob & van Soest, Arthur, 1999. "Desired and actual labour supply of unmarried men and women in the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 95-118, March.
    33. Connelly, Rachel, 1992. "The Effect of Child Care Costs on Married Women's Labor Force Participation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 83-90, February.
    34. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    35. Yoram Barzel, 1973. "The Determination of Daily Hours and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(2), pages 220-238.
    36. Raymond Gradus, 1996. "The economic effects of extending shop opening hours," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 247-263, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dominique Goux & Eric Maurin, 2022. "Who will work on Sunday? The winners and losers of Sunday laws relaxation," Working Papers halshs-03884675, HAL.
    2. Lucia Rizzica & Giacomo Roma & Gabriele Rovigatti, 2020. "The effects of shop opening hours deregulation: evidence from Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1281, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Aleksandra Grzesiuk, 2021. "Sunday Trading Ban in Poland: Reflection After Three Years," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 3), pages 233-242.
    4. Andre Jungmittag, 2018. "The Direct and Indirect Effects of Product Market Regulations in the Retail Trade Sector," JRC Research Reports JRC112222, Joint Research Centre.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Senftleben-König, Charlotte, 2014. "Product market deregulation and employment outcomes: Evidence from the German retail sector," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2014-013, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    2. Senftleben-König, Charlotte, 2014. "Product Market Deregulation and Employment Outcomes: Evidence from the German Retail Sector," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100539, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2014-013 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Charlotte Senftleben-König, "undated". "Product Market Deregulation and Employment Outcomes: Evidence from the German Retail Sector," BDPEMS Working Papers 2014009, Berlin School of Economics.
    5. Svetoslav Danchev & Christos Genakos, 2015. "Evaluating the Impact of Sunday Trading Deregulation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1336, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Andre Jungmittag, 2018. "The Direct and Indirect Effects of Product Market Regulations in the Retail Trade Sector," JRC Research Reports JRC112222, Joint Research Centre.
    7. Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Ziegler, Alexandre, 2003. "Asymmetric information about workers' productivity as a cause for inefficient long working hours," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 727-747, December.
    8. Lucia Rizzica & Giacomo Roma & Gabriele Rovigatti, 2020. "The effects of shop opening hours deregulation: evidence from Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1281, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Richard Blundell & Mike Brewer & Marco Francesconi, 2008. "Job Changes and Hours Changes: Understanding the Path of Labor Supply Adjustment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 421-453, July.
    10. Rob Euwals & Bertrand Melenberg & Arthur van Soest, 1998. "Testing the predictive value of subjective labour supply data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(5), pages 567-585.
    11. Michael C. Knaus & Steffen Otterbach, 2019. "Work Hour Mismatch And Job Mobility: Adjustment Channels And Resolution Rates," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 227-242, January.
    12. René Böheim & Mark P. Taylor, 2003. "Option Or Obligation? The Determinants Of Labour Supply Preferences In Britain," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(2), pages 113-131, March.
    13. Fischer, Benjamin & Jessen, Robin & Steiner, Viktor, 2019. "Work incentives and the cost of redistribution via tax-transfer reforms under constrained labor supply," Discussion Papers 2019/10, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    14. Jeffrey Smith & Arthur Sweetman, 2016. "Viewpoint: Estimating the causal effects of policies and programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 871-905, August.
    15. Habte, Osmis, 2017. "Opening Hours Decision and Competition in the Motor Vehicle Inspection Market," Working Papers 2017:20, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    16. John K. Dagsvik & Zhiyang Jia & Tom Kornstad & Thor O. Thoresen, 2014. "Theoretical And Practical Arguments For Modeling Labor Supply As A Choice Among Latent Jobs," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 134-151, February.
    17. Nadia Steiber, 2008. ""How Many Hours Would you Want to Work a Week?": Job Quality and the Omitted Variables Bias in Labour Supply Models," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 121, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    18. Taylor K. Odle, 2022. "Free to Spend? Institutional Autonomy and Expenditures on Executive Compensation, Faculty Salaries, and Research Activities," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 63(1), pages 1-32, February.
    19. Senay Topal & Patrick Richard & John Young & Anuradha Ganesan & Todd Gleeson & Jason Blaylock & Jason F. Okulicz & Xiuping Chu & Brian K. Agan, 2024. "Mandated checkups, knowledge of own health status, and chronic care utilization: The effect of HIV medical evaluation mandates on healthcare quality and expenditure in a US‐single payer system," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 59-81, January.
    20. Bossler, Mario & Oberfichtner, Michael, 2014. "The employment effect of deregulating shopping hours: Evidence from German retailing," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100506, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    21. Gregor Pfeifer & Mirjam Reutter & Kristina Strohmaier, 2020. "Goodbye Smokers’ Corner: Health Effects of School Smoking Bans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 1068-1104.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deregulation; Shop opening; Employment status; Hours distribution; Difference-in-differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    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:eee:eecrev:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:329-353. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    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.