IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecdequ/v26y2012i4p298-310.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting WalMart’s Impact on Iowa Small-Town Retail

Author

Listed:
  • Georgeanne M. Artz
  • Kenneth E. Stone

Abstract

Ken Stone conducted the first study of WalMart stores’ economic impact in Iowa in 1988. Since then, research on WalMart’s impacts has exploded. Recent studies employ sophisticated statistical techniques to more accurately measure the size and direction of effects. Many reach conclusions similar to Stone’s original work. This article updates the original Stone study with additional years of data. It draws on recent methodological advances to help account for the effects of WalMart’s strategic location decisions on estimated retail sales in Iowa. As is consistent with previous studies, we find that WalMart’s entry into smaller trade centers in Iowa had a big initial impact on host-town retail sales, with some categories experiencing significant increases while others saw declines in sales per capita. WalMart’s presence helped stabilize or even expand the local retail sector of most rural Iowa host communities. To conclude, we discuss policy implications for local economic development officials.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgeanne M. Artz & Kenneth E. Stone, 2012. "Revisiting WalMart’s Impact on Iowa Small-Town Retail," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(4), pages 298-310, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecdequ:v:26:y:2012:i:4:p:298-310
    DOI: 10.1177/0891242412461828
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891242412461828
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0891242412461828?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Irwin, Elena G. & Clark, Jill, 2006. "Wall Street vs. Main Street: What are the Benefits and Costs of Wal-Mart to Local Communities?," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 21(2), pages 1-6.
    2. Stone, Kenneth E., 1995. "Competing With the Retail Giants," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5307, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Georgeanne M. Artz & Kenneth E. Stone, 2006. "Analyzing the Impact of Wal-Mart Supercenters on Local Food Store Sales," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1296-1303.
    4. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    5. Basker, Emek, 2011. "The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart’s Growth," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 110-134.
    6. Emek Basker, 2005. "Job Creation or Destruction? Labor Market Effects of Wal-Mart Expansion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 174-183, February.
    7. Stone, Kenneth E., 1991. "Competing with the Mass Merchandisers," Staff General Research Papers Archive 11230, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, April.
    9. Deller, Steven C. & McConnon, James Jr. C. & Stone, Kenneth E., 1991. "The Measurement of a Communityï¾’S Retail Market," Staff General Research Papers Archive 11229, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    11. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    12. Ozment, John & Martin, Greg, 1990. "Changes in the competitive environments of rural trade areas : Effects of discount retail chains," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 277-287, November.
    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. Rudholm, Niklas & Li, Yuijao & Kenneth, Carling, 2018. "How Does Big-Box Entry Affect Labor Productivity in Durable Goods Retailing? A Synthetic Control Approach," HUI Working Papers 130, HUI Research.
    2. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Oana Mihaescu & Helena Nilsson & Niklas Rudholm, 2017. "What happens when IKEA comes to town?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 313-323, February.
    3. Klaesson, Johan & Nilsson, Helena, 2020. "Entry of malls and exit of stores - The role of distance and economic geography," HFI Working Papers 12, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    4. Håkansson, Johan & Li, Yujiao & Mihaescu, Oana & Rudholm, Niklas, 2016. "Big-box retail entry in urban and rural areas: Are there productivity spillovers to incumbent retailers?," HUI Working Papers 118, HUI Research.

    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. Artz, Georgeanne M. & Stone, Kenneth E., 2012. "Revisiting Wal-Mart's Impact on Iowa Small Town Retail: Twenty-Five Years Later," Staff General Research Papers Archive 37646, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Håkansson, Johan & Li, Yujiao & Mihaescu, Oana & Rudholm, Niklas, 2016. "Big-box retail entry in urban and rural areas: Are there productivity spillovers to incumbent retailers?," HUI Working Papers 118, HUI Research.
    3. Alessandro Bonanno & Stephan J. Goetz, 2012. "WalMart and Local Economic Development," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(4), pages 285-297, November.
    4. Peralta, Denis & Kim, Man-Keun, 2016. "Big-Box Retailers and Personal Income Growth in the U.S," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235216, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Dettmann, Eva & Becker, Claudia & Schmeißer, Christian, 2010. "Is there a Superior Distance Function for Matching in Small Samples?," IWH Discussion Papers 3/2010, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Marno Verbeek, 2017. "Using linear regression to establish empirical relationships," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 336-336, February.
    7. Donald Vandegrift, 2016. "The effect of Walmart and Target on property tax rates," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 309-327, October.
    8. Linnemayr, Sebastian & Alderman, Harold, 2011. "Almost random: Evaluating a large-scale randomized nutrition program in the presence of crossover," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 106-114, September.
    9. Rebecca Cleary & Rigoberto Lopez, 2014. "Supermarket responses to Wal-Mart Supercenter expansion: a structural approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 905-925, November.
    10. Niklas Rudholm & Yujiao Li & Kenneth Carling, 2022. "How does big-box retail entry affect labor productivity in durable goods retailing? A synthetic control approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(1), pages 89-117, August.
    11. Wei, Sheng & Huo, Hong & Xu, Ming & Kadirov, Djavlonbek & Fam, Kim-Shyan, 2021. "Shop-hop till you drop! The effect of the image gap on spillover patronage within retail agglomerations," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    12. Fredrik Kopsch, 2015. "Winners, Losers and Optimal Re-location of a Mining Town: An Approach Using Alonso Bid-Rent Functions," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(12), pages 2483-2496, December.
    13. Martin Schlotter & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: a non-technical guide," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 109-137.
    14. Sanchez-Vidal, Maria, 2019. "Retail shocks and city structure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103394, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Frölich, Markus & Michaelowa, Katharina, 2004. "Peer effects and textbooks in primary education: Evidence from francophone sub-Saharan Africa," HWWA Discussion Papers 311, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    16. Volpe, Richard J., III, 2011. "Evaluating the Performance of U.S. Supermarkets: Pricing Strategies, Competition from Hypermarkets, and Private Labels," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1-16, December.
    17. Costas Meghir & Mårten Palme, 2003. "Ability, parental background and educational policy: empirical evidence from a social experiment," IFS Working Papers W03/05, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2018. "A General Weighted Average Representation of the Ordinary and Two-Stage Least Squares Estimands," IZA Discussion Papers 11866, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Adriana D. Kugler & Robert M. Sauer, 2005. "Doctors without Borders? Relicensing Requirements and Negative Selection in the Market for Physicians," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(3), pages 437-466, July.
    20. Anuj Kumar & Rahul Telang, 2012. "Does the Web Reduce Customer Service Cost? Empirical Evidence from a Call Center," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(3-part-1), pages 721-737, September.

    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:sae:ecdequ:v:26:y:2012:i:4:p:298-310. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.