Abstract

The geographical pattern of consumers’ expenditures, whether made on-site or online, has implications for the location of economic activity and regional economic development. Data limitations have however limited our knowledge of this aspect of consumer behaviour. This paper uses transaction data to investigate such geographical patterns, and the impact of online commerce on these and on inter-regional retail trade linkages between cities and regions. We build original mobility and inter-regional retail trade measures from nearly 20 billion domestic consumer transactions made through bank cards, in France 2018-19. We find evidence that online consumer expenditure are more heavily concentrated in the already-large regional economies, relative to on-site expenditure, which suggests that the increasing movement toward online purchasing tend to increase the concentration of overall economic activity, and may have important implications for regional economic development.

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.