IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/118055.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

(In)convenient stores? What do policies pushing stores to town centres actually do?

Author

Listed:
  • Cheshire, Paul
  • Hilber, Christian A. L.
  • Montebruno Bondi, Piero
  • Sanchis-Guarner, Rosa

Abstract

England´s Town Centre First Policy, introduced in 1996, restricted the opening of new retail and other ‘traditional town centre activities’ to ‘Town Centre’ (TC) locations. The aim was to halt the decay of high streets. We explore the impact of the policy on the supply and location of grocery shops and patterns of shopping by comparing English with Scottish TCs before and after the policy change in England. Using store level census data, we show first that supply trends for grocery stores in TCs were similar in both countries prior to the implementation of the policy. After the policy took effect, however, stores in TCs increased relatively more strongly in England, but with no change in grocery employment. Second, using survey data, we show that the policy changed the composition of shops in TCs in favour of convenience-type shops supplied by the “big four” grocery chains. However, although it increased the number of TC shops, the policy had no effect on the number of shoppers choosing TC locations.

Suggested Citation

  • Cheshire, Paul & Hilber, Christian A. L. & Montebruno Bondi, Piero & Sanchis-Guarner, Rosa, 2022. "(In)convenient stores? What do policies pushing stores to town centres actually do?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118055, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:118055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/118055/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Fernando Borraz & Juan Dubra & Daniel Ferrés & Leandro Zipitría, 2014. "Supermarket Entry and the Survival of Small Stores," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(1), pages 73-93, February.
    4. Paul Cheshire & Christian Hilber & Piero Montebruno & Rosa Sanchis-Guarner, 2018. "Take Me to the Centre of Your Town! Using Micro-geographical Data to Identify Town Centres," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(2), pages 255-291.
    5. Jonathan Haskel & Raffaella Sadun, 2012. "Regulation and UK Retailing Productivity: Evidence from Microdata," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(315), pages 425-448, July.
    6. Couture, Victor & Handbury, Jessie, 2020. "Urban revival in America," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    7. Raffaella Sadun, 2015. "Does Planning Regulation Protect Independent Retailers?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(5), pages 983-1001, December.
    8. Dionysia Lambiri & Alessandra Faggian & Neil Wrigley, 2017. "Linked-trip effects of ‘town-centre-first' era foodstore development: An assessment using difference-in-differences," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(1), pages 160-179, January.
    9. Maria Sánchez-Vidal, 2019. "Retail shocks and city structure," CEP Discussion Papers dp1636, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Paul Cheshire, 2018. "Broken Market or Broken Policy? The Unintended Consequences of Restrictive Planning," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 245(1), pages 9-19, August.
    11. Paul C. Cheshire & Christian A. L. Hilber & Ioannis Kaplanis, 2015. "Land use regulation and productivity—land matters: evidence from a UK supermarket chain," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 43-73.
    12. Emek Basker & Michael Noel, 2009. "The Evolving Food Chain: Competitive Effects of Wal‐Mart's Entry into the Supermarket Industry," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 977-1009, December.
    13. Koster, Hans R.A. & Pasidis, Ilias & van Ommeren, Jos, 2019. "Shopping externalities and retail concentration: Evidence from dutch shopping streets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. Donald R. Davis & Jonathan I. Dingel & Joan Monras & Eduardo Morales, 2019. "How Segregated Is Urban Consumption?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1684-1738.
    15. 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.
    16. Marco Leonardi & Enrico Moretti, 2022. "The Agglomeration of Urban Amenities: Evidence from Milan Restaurants," NBER Working Papers 29663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Maria Sanchez Vidal, 2016. "Small shops for sale! The effects of big-box openings on grocery stores," Working Papers 2016/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    3. Maria Sánchez-Vidal, 2019. "Retail shocks and city structure," CEP Discussion Papers dp1636, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Florin Maican & Matilda Orth, 2017. "Productivity Dynamics and the Role of ‘Big-Box’ Entrants in Retailing," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 397-438, June.
    5. Zipitría, Leandro, 2011. "Impacto económico del Supermercadismo [The Economics of Supermarkets: A Brief Literature Review]," MPRA Paper 28419, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Fabiano Schivardi & Eliana Viviano, 2011. "Entry Barriers in Retail Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 145-170, March.
    7. Schuetz, Jenny, 2015. "Why are Walmart and Target Next-Door neighbors?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 38-48.
    8. Matias Busso & Sebastian Galiani, 2019. "The Causal Effect of Competition on Prices and Quality: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-56, January.
    9. Minjee Kim & Tingyu Zhou, 2021. "Does Restricting the Entry of Formula Businesses Help Mom-and-Pop Stores? The Case of Small American Towns With Unique Community Character," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(2), pages 157-173, May.
    10. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2015. "A dynamic analysis of entry regulations and productivity in retail trade," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-80.
    11. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2012. "Imports and the structure of retail markets," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1431-1455, November.
    12. Bilotkach, Volodymyr & Braakmann, Nils & Gonzalo-Almorox, Eduardo & Wildman, John, 2017. "The effect of house prices on the long-term care market: Evidence from England," MPRA Paper 81987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Schivardi, Fabiano & Pozzi, Andrea, 2015. "Entry Regulation in Retail Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10836, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Daniel Hanner & Daniel Hosken & Luke M. Olson & Loren K. Smith, 2015. "Dynamics in a Mature Industry: Entry, Exit, and Growth of Big‐Box Grocery Retailers," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 22-46, March.
    15. Fernando Borraz & Juan Dubra & Daniel Ferrés & Leandro Zipitría, 2009. "Supermarket Entry and its effect on small stores in Montevideo, 1998 to 2007," Documentos de trabajo 2009005, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    16. Borrescio-Higa, Florencia, 2015. "Can Walmart make us healthier? Prescription drug prices and health care utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 37-53.
    17. Fernando Borraz & Juan Dubra & Daniel Ferrés & Leandro Zipitría, 2014. "Supermarket Entry and the Survival of Small Stores," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(1), pages 73-93, February.
    18. Huub Ploegmakers & Pascal Beckers & Erwin Van der Krabben, 2018. "The impact of planning intervention on business development: Evidence from the Netherlands," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(14), pages 3252-3273, November.
    19. ., 2014. "Planning and economic performance," Chapters, in: Urban Economics and Urban Policy, chapter 5, pages 104-126, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Charlotte Senftleben-König, "undated". "Product Market Deregulation and Employment Outcomes: Evidence from the German Retail Sector," BDPEMS Working Papers 2014009, Berlin School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    land use planning; retail location; shopping destinations; town centre; decay of high street;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • R33 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Nonagricultural and Nonresidential Real Estate Markets
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:118055. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.