Neumark, David. <br/><br/>
The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets / 
David Neumark, Junfu Zhang, Stephen Ciccarella. 
 - Cambridge, Mass.  National Bureau of Economic Research  2005. 
 - 1 online resource:  illustrations (black and white); 
 - NBER working paper series  no. w11782 .
 - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)  no. w11782. .
<br/><br/> November 2005. 
<br/><br/> We estimate the effects of Wal-Mart stores on county-level retail employment and earnings, accounting for endogeneity of the location and timing of Wal-Mart openings that most likely biases the evidence against finding adverse effects of Wal-Mart stores.  We address the endogeneity problem using a natural instrumental variables approach that arises from the geographic and time pattern of the opening of Wal-Mart stores, which slowly spread out from the first stores in Arkansas.  The employment results indicate that a Wal-Mart store opening reduces county-level retail employment by about 150 workers, implying that each Wal-Mart worker replaces approximately 1.4 retail workers.  This represents a 2.7 percent reduction in average retail employment.  The payroll results indicate that Wal-Mart store openings lead to declines in county-level retail earnings of about $1.4 million, or 1.5 percent.  Of course, these effects occurred against a backdrop of rising retail employment, and only imply lower retail employment growth than would have occurred absent the effects of Wal-Mart. 
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