Wal-Mart and other larger retail chains are often identified with cheap imports. We use data from the Census of Retail Trade and the International Trade Commission to test the theory that big retail chains serve as a platform for imports from LDCs. Controlling for overall sector growth, Chinese and other LDC imports have increased disproportionately in retail sectors with the largest consolidation into chains over the period 19972002. Our estimation results imply that between 1997 and 2002 the marginal propensity to import from China was 3.3 times larger for the largest firms than for smaller retailers. The disproportionate growth of large retailers over this period explains 19% of the growth in consumer goods imports from China.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Missouri in its series Working Papers with number
0804.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Country and Industry Studies of Trade L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
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