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Consumer Mobility, Online and On-site Commerce and the Geographic Concentration of Economic Activity: Evidence from 20 Billion Transactions

Author

Listed:
  • David Bounie
  • Youssouf Camara
  • John W. Galbraith

Abstract

The geographical pattern of consumers’ expenditures, whether made on-site or online, has implications for the location of economic activity and regional economic development. Data limitations have however limited our knowledge of this aspect of consumer behaviour. This paper uses transaction data to investigate such geographical patterns, and the impact of online commerce on these and on inter-regional retail trade linkages between cities and regions. We build original mobility and inter-regional retail trade measures from nearly 20 billion domestic consumer transactions made through bank cards, in France 2018-19. We find evidence that online consumer expenditure are more heavily concentrated in the already-large regional economies, relative to on-site expenditure, which suggests that the increasing movement toward online purchasing tend to increase the concentration of overall economic activity, and may have important implications for regional economic development. La répartition géographique des dépenses des consommateurs, qu'elles soient effectuées dans les commerces physiques ou en ligne, a des répercussions sur la localisation de l'activité économique et le développement économique régional. Le manque de données a toutefois limité notre connaissance de la répartition géographique des dépenses des consommateurs. Cet article utilise des données de transaction par carte bancaire pour étudier l'impact du commerce en ligne sur les comportements de dépense des consommateurs et sur les liens commerciaux entre les villes et les régions. Nous construisons des mesures originales de mobilité des consommateurs et de liens commerciaux entre villes et régions en utilisant près de 20 milliards de transactions par cartes bancaires en France sur la période 2018-19. Nous montrons que les dépenses de consommation en ligne par rapport à celles réalisées dans les commerces physiques sont plus fortement concentrées dans les économies régionales de taille importante, ce qui suggère que la croissance du commerce électronique tend à augmenter la concentration de l'activité économique globale, et peut avoir des implications importantes pour le développement économique régional.

Suggested Citation

  • David Bounie & Youssouf Camara & John W. Galbraith, 2021. "Consumer Mobility, Online and On-site Commerce and the Geographic Concentration of Economic Activity: Evidence from 20 Billion Transactions," CIRANO Working Papers 2021s-17, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2021s-17
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption Expenditure; Consumer Mobility; Inter-Regional Trade; Ecommerce; Dépenses de consommation; Mobilité des consommateurs; Commerce interrégional; Commerce électronique;
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