Search Results
Journal Article
Banks with something to lose: the disciplinary role of franchise value
As protectors of the safety and soundness of the banking system, banking supervisors are responsible for keeping banks' risk taking in check. The authors explain that franchise value--the present value of the stream of profits that a firm is expected to earn as a going concern--makes the supervisor's job easier by reducing banks' incentives to take risks. The authors explore the relationship between franchise value and risk taking from 1986 to 1994 using both balance-sheet data and stock returns. They find that banks with high franchise value operate more safely than those with low franchise ...
Journal Article
What do chain store sales tell us about consumer spending?
Released at both weekly and monthly intervals, chain store indexes provide a timely measure of the sales performance of large retail companies. This article investigates whether the indexes can also play a role in tracking and forecasting consumer spending as a whole. The authors begin by exploring the extent to which developments in chain store sales are representative of retail sales trends overall. They then conduct formal statistical tests of the relationship between chain store data and official measures of total retail sales and personal consumption expenditure. They find that monthly ...
Journal Article
Greyfield redevelopment : old malls seek new life
Journal Article
Midyear update: major metros driving Texas expansion
Working Paper
On the reasons for gradual markdowns by retailers
Journal Article
Shopping discount: hip or hype?
The past decade has seen a proliferation of factory outlet stores and centers, many of which are located in the Fifth District. Some are even tourist attractions. But will these outlets continue to succeed in the '90s?
Journal Article
Gift card value when issuers go bankrupt
What value does a prepaid gift card retain when the company where it can be spent files for bankruptcy? A legal intern looks at the law and recent cases and offers advice to consumers.
Working Paper
On gradual price reduction as a retail sales strategy
Working Paper
The measurement of retail output and the retail revolution
The computerization of retailing has made price dispersion a norm in the United States, so that any given list price or transactions price is an increasingly imperfect measure of a product's resource cost. As a consequence, measuring the real output of retailers has become increasingly difficult. Food retailing is used as a case study to examine data problems in retail productivity measurement. Crude direct measures of grocery store output suggest that the CPI for food-at-home may have been overstated by 1.4 percentage points annually from 1978 to 1996.
Newsletter
Big-box retail and its impact on local communities
What is the local impact of big-box retail? Some states have begun to reconsider whether the benefits of such development are worth the costs to local communities.