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The Impacts of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Entry and Exit of Retail Firms

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Author Info
James E. Prieger

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Abstract

Congress enacted The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 over the protests of small business advocates who claimed that the ADA would trigger a wave of bankruptcies. Although the profitability of firms may suffer from the costs of ADA compliance, no systematic evidence is available. This paper seeks to determine if the ADA had a measurable impact on both the entry of new firms and the failure rates (exit) of existing firms. The data used in the study are counts of business establishments currently operating by county and type of business. Backing out the entry and exit rates from the establishment count data is a major econometric contribution of the paper. The empirical results imply that the ADA indeed decreased the number of retail firms. There were fewer retail firms after the ADA was passed, and the drop was larger in states in which the ADA was more of a legal innovation, and in states that had more disabled people, more ADA-related lawsuits, and more ADA-related labor complaints. The same conclusions hold when baseline trends for larger establishments (those least vulnerable to the costs imposed by the ADA) are differenced out. There is also evidence that employment and access discrimination suits imposed real costs on retail stores, encouraging exit. However, the exit of incumbents was partially offset by new entrants, which may imply that stores less able to adapt to the new requirements made room for the entry of stores better able to adapt. So, while the prediction by the pessimists that the ADA would cause firms to fail may be correct, the decline in the number of firms was partially offset by new entry.

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Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings with number 589.

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Date of creation: 11 Aug 2004
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:nawm04:589

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Related research
Keywords: entry; exit; count data models; queuing theory; ADA; industry dynamics;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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  6. Prieger, James E, 2001. "Telecommunications Regulation and New Services: A Case Study at the State Level," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 285-305, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Edward J. Schumacher & Marjorie L. Baldwin, 2000. "The American with Disabilities Act and the Labor Market Experience of Workers with Disabilities: Evidence from the SIPP," Working Papers 0013, East Carolina University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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    Other versions:
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  16. Holmes, Thomas J & Schmitz, James A, Jr, 1995. "On the Turnover of Business Firms and Business Managers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 1005-38, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. David H. Autor & William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler, 2007. "Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States," IZA Discussion Papers 2571, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. James Prieger, 2007. "The Impact of Cost Changes on Industry Entry and Exit," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 91(3), pages 211-243, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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