Retail and wholesale enterprise among ethnic groups in core and peripheral urban centers: the late-nineteenth-century United States

Abstract

Ethnic entrepreneurs often benefit from reciprocal relationships, such as buyer–supplier linkages, among co-ethnic businesses. The present study extends this insight, analyzing census data on the relationship between ethnic enterprise in the retail trade and co-ethnic enterprise in the wholesale trade in urban centers of core and peripheral regions of the late-nineteenth-century United States. As expected, this relationship varied markedly by ethnicity and region. For some groups (e.g., Russians), co-ethnic retail and wholesale enterprises were positively related on the periphery but not in the core; conversely, for other groups (e.g., Irish), co-ethnic retail and wholesale enterprises were positively related in the core but not on the periphery. The results imply that reciprocal relationships among co-ethnic businesses are significantly affected by variation in the characteristics of local opportunity structures across urban-regional locations.