Shopping hours and price competition

Price Effects of Shopping Hours Regulation: Evidence From Germany

“…Under this assumption, competition among deregulated retail outlets that drives businesses to remain open later will create higher labour and other operating costs without increasing revenue, which may result in higher consumer prices. This outcome is supported by theoretical work by Inderst and Irmen (2005). Clemenz (1990), however, assumes that consumers do not have perfect knowledge about prices and must gather information, which may be costly, and predicts that, if longer shopping hours facilitate price comparison, deregulation could reduce prices by encouraging competition among retailers.…”

“…Clemenz (1990) arrives at an identical result. Though Inderst and Irmen (2005) develop a model in which both large and small retailers benefit from deregulation, the empirical literature discussed below does suggest that larger retailers are more likely than small, independent retailers to take advantage of extended opening hours. Moreover, these larger outlets generate most employment gains that appear in the empirical literature.…”

Ordered bargaining

“…28 Suppliers may also lobby for restrictive hours-of-service regulation. For analyses of such rules and their deregulation, see Ferris (1990), Kosfeld (2002) and Inderst and Irmen (2005). 29 The analysis is of course symmetric for buyers.…”

Service hours with asymmetric distributions of ideal service time

“…For example, in the private retailing industry, business hours have traditionally been regulated in many European countries. More recently the liberalization of business hours has generated heated debates in the political arena as well as in the academic literature, see De Meza (1984), Ferris (1990Ferris ( , 1991, Clemenz (1990Clemenz ( , 1994, Kay and Morris (1987), Inderst and Irmen (2005), Tangay et al (1995), Thum and Weichenrieder (1997), and Shy and Stenbacka (2004).…”