Among typical entrepreneurs, is the serial entrepreneur more likely to succeed? If so, why? We answer these two questions using a comprehensive and unique data set on all establishments started at any time between 1990 and 2011 to sell taxable goods and services in the state of Texas. An...

With malls, franchise strips and big-box retailers increasingly dotting the landscape, there is concern that middle-class jobs in manufacturing in the U.S. are being replaced by minimum wage jobs in retail. Retail jobs have spread, while manufacturing jobs have shrunk in number. In this paper,...

We examine changes in the retail sector in the US over the period 1999 to 2017. We show that while there were fewer physical stores in 2017 compared to the start of the period (consistent with the widely reported notion of a “retail apocalypse”), other indicators including employment, real...