IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v68y2015i3p633-665.html

Do Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?

Author

Listed:
  • Brianna Cardiff-Hicks
  • Francine Lafontaine
  • Kathryn Shaw

    (Brianna Cardiff-Hicks is an Associate at Cornerstone Research. Francine Lafontaine is the William Davidson Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy in the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Kathryn Shaw is the Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.)

Abstract

With malls, franchise strips, and big-box retailers increasingly dotting the landscape, many are concerned that U.S. middle-class jobs in manufacturing are being replaced by minimum-wage jobs in retail. Retail jobs have spread, whereas manufacturing jobs have shrunk in number. The authors show that wage rates in the retail sector rise markedly with firm size and with establishment size. These increases are halved when they control for worker fixed effects, suggesting that better workers are sorted into larger firms. Also, higher-ability workers are promoted to the position of manager, which is associated with higher pay. The authors conclude that the growth in modern retail, characterized by larger chains of larger establishments with more levels of hierarchy, is raising wage rates relative to traditional mom-and-pop retail stores.

Suggested Citation

  • Brianna Cardiff-Hicks & Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn Shaw, 2015. "Do Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(3), pages 633-665, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:68:y:2015:i:3:p:633-665
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/68/3/633.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jose Joaquin Lopez & Jesica Torres, 2020. "Size-dependent policies, talent misallocation, and the return to skill," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 59-93, October.
    2. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Nikolay Zubanov, 2022. "Middle Managers, Personnel Turnover, and Performance: A Long‐Term Field Experiment in a Retail Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 211-229, January.
    3. Kevin Rinz, 2018. "Labor Market Concentration, Earnings Inequality, and Earnings Mobility," CARRA Working Papers 2018-10, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    4. Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn Shaw, 2016. "Serial Entrepreneurship: Learning by Doing?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S2), pages 217-254.
    5. Pierre Bachas & Lucie Gadenne & Anders Jensen, 2024. "Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(5), pages 2604-2634.
    6. Justin C. Wiltshire, 2023. "Walmart Supercenters and Monopsony Power: How A Large, Low-Wage Employer Impacts Local Labor Markets," Department Discussion Papers 2304, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    7. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2015. "The Ongoing Evolution of US Retail: A Format Tug-of-War," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 89-112, Fall.
    8. Charles Courtemanche & Art Carden & Xilin Zhou & Murugi Ndirangu, 2019. "Do Walmart Supercenters Improve Food Security?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 177-198, June.
    9. Osman, Adam & Speer, Jamin D. & Weaver, Andrew, 2022. "Connections, Referrals, and Hiring Outcomes: Evidence from an Egyptian Establishment Survey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 342-355.
    10. Chenarides, Lauren & Richards, Timothy J. & Rutledge, Zachariah & Pender, John, 2025. "Dollar store impact on local labor markets and retail activity," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:68:y:2015:i:3:p:633-665. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.