This paper examines the evolution of the supermarket industry, from the birth of the chain store concept in the early 1900s to the recent rise of the Wal-Mart supercenter. The central message is that the major themes relevant today (the importance of scale and standardization, technological...

We measure the revenue and cost implications to supermarkets of changing their price positioning strategy in oligopolistic downstream retail markets. Our estimates have implications for long-run market structure in the supermarket industry, and for measuring the sources of price rigidity in the...

This paper empirically examines the impact of entry by Wal-Mart on competition in the supermarket industry. Using a detailed panel dataset spanning 1994 to 2006, we estimate the impact of Wal-Mart on firm outcomes and market structure, controlling for persistent local trends and systematic...