National Chains and Trends in Retail Productivity Dispersion

This working paper explores how the retail sector has transformed over three decades, revealing widening productivity gaps among stores even as national chains have created more uniform shopping experiences. The authors show that large chain stores—typically more productive and more similar to each other—play a major role in reshaping the middle of the productivity distribution, while smaller and less productive stores make up a growing and increasingly varied lower tail. Through new dispersion statistics, the study highlights how shifts in technology, store size, and industry structure continue to influence productivity outcomes across retail. These findings offer a deeper look at how reallocation, competition, and changing business models shape economic performance within the sector.