Alternative output measurement for the U.S. retail trade sector

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 128, Issue 7, 2005, Pages 39-45

  Timmer, Marcel P ^a   Inklaar, Robert ^a   Van Ark, Bart ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN   (Netherlands)

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EID: 28244491609     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (17)

1. See, for example, Bart van Ark, Robert, Inklaar, and R. H. McGuckin, "ICT and productivity in Europe and the United States, Where do the differences come from?" CESifo Economic Studies, vol. 49, March 2003, pp. 295-318.
2. See, for example, The EU Economy 2004 Review, European Economy no. 6 (Luxembourg, European Commission, Office for Official Publications, 2004).
3. See Christopher Kask, David Kiernan, and Brian Friedman, "Labor productivity growth in wholesale trade, 1990-2000," Monthly Labor Review, December 2002, pp. 3-14
4. and Mark Sieling, Brian Friedman, and Mark Dumas, "Labor productivity in the retail trade industry, 1987-99," Monthly Labor Review, December 2001, pp. 3-14.
5. See Jack E. Triplett and Barry P. Bosworth, Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector. New Sources of Economic Growth, ch. 8 (Washington, DC, The Brookings Institution, 2004), p. 240.
6. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) produces the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) for the United States. The BEA uses the margin concept as the concept for retail industry output.
7. See Triplett and Bosworth Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector, 2004
8. and Marilyn E. Manser, "Productivity measures for retail trade: data and issues," Monthly Labor Review, July 2005, pp. 30-38. Some services, such as service shops of automobile dealers, provide directly priced services which can be surveyed as well.
9. Manser, "Productivity measures for retail trade: data."
10. See also Walter Oi, "Productivity in the Distributive Trades: The Shopper and the Economies of Massed Reserves," in Zvi Griliches, ed., Output Measurement in the Service Sector (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992);
11. B. T. Ratchford, "Has the productivity of retail food stores really declined?" Journal of Retailing, vol. 79, issue 3, 2003, pp. 171-82;
12. and Triplett and Bosworth, Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector, for a discussion about various output and productivity measures in trade industries.
13. See Jack E. Triplett, "High Tech Industry Productivity and Hedonic Price Indices," in OECD, Industry Productivity. International Comparison and Measurement Issues, OECD Proceedings, Paris, 1996, pp. 119-42.
14. See Paul Liegey, "Apparel price indexes: effects of hedonic adjustments," Monthly Labor Review, May 1994, pp. 38-45.
15. Ignoring transport margins is not a major problem as transport margins only represent a small share of personal consumption expenditure. Not taking taxes into account is potentially more serious: sales and excise taxes have been rising at about 5 percent per year between 1993 and 2002. Still, the potential impact on our results is limited: taxes that represent 7 percent of the total sales value, and increase at about 5 percent per year, add 0.35 percent to sales prices on annual basis.
16. We also have to assume that shares of product categories in total sales are representative of their shares in total purchases. In the case where margins differ by product within a particular retail industry, the share of a product in purchases will not be equal to its share in total sales. For example, if margins on computers are smaller than on other products sold by electronic and appliances stores, we underestimate the share of computers in the purchases price index. Given the fact that computer prices decline faster than prices of other products sold by this retailing industry, we probably underestimate the price decline of purchases. It is possible to perform some ad hoc sensitivity analysis but, as mentioned before, we have no formal way to evaluate these potential measurement errors.
17. See, for example, Ratchford, "Has the productivity of retail food stores really declined?"