Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
HFI Working Papers,
Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut)
No 10: The Decline of Small Cities: Increased Competition from External Shopping Malls or Long-Term Negative Trends?
Sven-Olov Daunfeldt, Oana Mihaescu () and Niklas Rudholm
Additional contact information
Sven-Olov Daunfeldt: Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut), Postal: Handelns Forskningsinstitut, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden
Oana Mihaescu: Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut), Postal: Handelns Forskningsinstitut, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden
Niklas Rudholm: Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut), Postal: Handelns Forskningsinstitut, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract: We use the entry of 17 external shopping malls in Sweden to investigate how they have affected the performance of incumbent firms located in the city centres of small cities. We find that entry by external shopping malls decreased labour productivity for incumbent firms in city centres by -5.31%. However, when using time-specific fixed effects to control for common time trends in retailing in small cities, the impact on labour productivity, revenues, and number of employees due to the entry of external shopping malls becomes insignificant. The negative impact on incumbent firms is thus not due to the entry of external shopping malls but rather due to long-term negative economic trends in these cities.
Keywords: external shopping malls; city centre; firm performance; agglomeration economies; competition; difference-in-differences
43 pages, August 24, 2020
Full text files
thedeclineofsmallcities200824wp-1.pdfFull text
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Hans Seerar Westerberg ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:11:38.