The Social and Industrial Dynamics of Retailing an Evolutionary Reconstruction

CentER Discussion Paper No. 2005-48

19 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2005

See all articles by Bart Nooteboom

Bart Nooteboom

Tilburg University - Tilburg University School of Economics and Management

Date Written: April 2006

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the long-term development of retailing, including industrial, economic and social antecedents and consequences.Among other things, it includes innovation in the form of the emergence and diffusion of successive novel types of shop (including self-service), relations between large and small firms in innovation and diffusion, change of demand conditions, institutional change concerning the opening time of shops, increase of scale and concentration, and social effects.For the analysis of the process and costs of retailing, use is made of queuing theory rather than customary production functions.The reconstruction is conducted in evolutionary terms of selection, variety generation and transmission.Scripts with nodes for component activities are used in analogy to chromosomes composed of genes.The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of evolutionary economics, and offers suggestions for its development.

Keywords: Retailing, industry structure, innovation and diffusion, shop opening hours, queuing theory

JEL Classification: B52; L22; L81; M13; O31; O33;

Suggested Citation

Nooteboom, Bart, The Social and Industrial Dynamics of Retailing an Evolutionary Reconstruction (April 2006). CentER Discussion Paper No. 2005-48, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=706943 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.706943

Bart Nooteboom (Contact Author)

Tilburg University - Tilburg University School of Economics and Management ( email )

P.O. Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

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