AN EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF RETAIL CHAINS AND SHOPPING-CENTER SIMILARITY

This paper uses data on the store brands contained in planned shopping centers in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, to carry out nonparametric tests of five hypotheses regarding shopping center similarity. The results yield evidence of (i) shopping center similarity (in store brands) across geographic markets for certain store types, (ii) store brand proliferation within shopping centers by multichain firms that operate stores catering to comparison shoppers, (iii) greater similarity between malls in store types that are dominated by multichain firms, and (iv) greater similarity (in store brands) of malls owned by the same firm than of malls owned by different firms.