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Evaluating Labor Productivity in Food Retailing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Timothy A. Park
Timothy A. Park*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia
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Abstract

Competition from new store formats including supercenters, warehouse clubs, and mass merchandisers has emerged as a major threat to traditional grocery chains. A primary objective of this paper is to understand how the store-level performance is related to the workforce composition of full-time and part-time employees chosen by the food retailer along with benefits and incentives provided to employees. The elasticity of complementarity for food retailers measures how changes in store size affect use of full-time and part-time employees. Larger store size increases the marginal value of labor, and firm hiring decisions shift to expanded use of part-time employees.

Keywords

elasticity of complementarityemployee compensationfood retailinginverse price elasticities
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 2008 , pp. 288 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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