Opening-up And The Market Power And Economic Performance Of Retail Chains

Since the development of the chain business in the 1990s,the chain business is always concerned by the community because it directly relates to the development of the commodity economy and the life of the residents.In academia,due to the limited availability of data and other reasons,the research on the retail chains is basically limited to the selection of locations and expansion.However,based on the background of opening-up and using the firm level data from 2000 to 2003 and 2008,this paper deeply analyzes the expansion of domestic and foreign retail chains,and empirically researches the market power and economic performance of the retail chains.The main conclusions are shown below.Firstly,there are significant differences in the expansion pattern between domestic and foreign retail chains.The expansion of domestic retail chains can be characterized by "spiral" expansion,and the extent of "spiral" expansion depends on the ownership,format and size of the firm.With regard to foreign retail chains,their expansion can be characterized by "scattered and then penetrated" expansion,and the network range tends to be larger.Secondly,only the market power of state-owned retail chains decreased significantly after China's accession to the WTO.After the full liberalization of foreign retail investment in China in 2004,the market power of state-owned and private-owned retail chains increased significantly,but the market power of foreign retail chains did not increase significantly.Thirdly,there is a significant positive correlation between market power and economic performance of the retail chains.Meanwhile,when the retail chains,which reformed the headquarters' ownership from state-owned type to other types,achieved significant improvement of market power,their economic performance was also got better.Finally,based on the research findings,this paper puts forward some suggestions and enlightenment to the retail chains and policy making,including the coordination of the balance between the enterprises' own strength and development goals,industry policy and opening-up policy,and hope the chain retail industry of China can get better development under the background of opening-up.