In 2006, the German federal government relinquished its power to determine store opening hours to the 16 federal states. Since then, substantial deregulation of shopping hours has occurred in all states except Bavaria and Saarland. Such deregulation could support economic growth, but it has been argued to hurt small businesses. Therefore, this thesis examines different store size categories to find possible effects of deregulation in Germany. Past studies have focused on the employment effects of deregulation, whereas this investigation employs a difference-in-difference approach with OLS regression on the number of stores in each size category. States that have extended store opening hours will be compared to those that have not. Theory predicts large stores to be more able to profit from efficiency gains and higher returns on investment due to extended hours. The results did not support the theoretical framework. Instead, the data indicate no significant effects on the number of stores and suggest that the constraints are not binding. Small businesses do not appear to have been affected by the change. If deregulation can be found to increase consumer spending and welfare, then such a policy change can have positive economic impacts. Further research should be aimed in this direction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses1990-2015-2842 |
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| Creators | Preuss, Anne |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | HIM 1990-2015 |
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