We report three findings: (1) Using evidence from chain bankruptcies and data on 12-18 million establishments per year, we show that large retailers produce significant positive spillovers. (2) Local governments respond to the size of these externalities. When a town's boundaries allow it to...

In this paper, we estimate the size of the externalities produced by big-box retail stores for other establishments and explore the effect of the externalities on local government policy.

In this paper, we estimate the size of the externalities produced by big-box retail stores for other establishments and explore the effect of the externalities on local government policy.