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Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector

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  • Emek Basker

Abstract

Barcodes and barcode scanners transformed the grocery industry in the 1970s. I use store-level data from the 1972, 1977, and 1982 Census of Retail Trade, matched to data on store scanner installations, to estimate scanners' effect on labor productivity. I find that early scanners increased a store's labor productivity, on average, by approximately 4.5 percent in the first few years. The effect was larger in stores carrying more packaged products, consistent with the presence of network externalities. Short-run gains were small relative to fixed costs, suggesting that the impediment to widespread adoption of the new technology was profitability, not coordination problems.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 17825.

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Date of creation: Feb 2012
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Publication status: published as Emek Basker, 2012. "Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-27, July.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17825
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
  • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
  • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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Cited by:

  1. Brianna Cardiff-Hicks & Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn Shaw, 2014. "Do Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?," NBER Working Papers 20313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Emek Basker, 2011. "Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector," Working Papers 11-16r, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Nov 2011.
  3. Levy, Daniel, 2013. "Discussion of "Change at the Checkout: Tracing the Impact of a Process Innovation" by Emek Basker," MPRA Paper 52605, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2011. "Manufacturers and Retailers in the Global Economy," Kiel Working Papers 1711, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  5. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2014. "Innovation in the Service Sector and the Role of Patents and Trade Secrets," Discussion papers 14030, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

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