Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector
利用1972、1977和1982年美国零售业普查数据，估计条码扫描器对商店劳动生产率的平均提升约4.5%，且对包装商品多的商店效果更大，表明短期盈利不足是推广障碍而非协调问题。
Barcodes and barcode scanners transformed the grocery industry in the 1970s. I use store-level data from the 1972, 1977, and 1982 Census of Retail Trade, matched to data on store scanner installations, to estimate scanners' effect on labor productivity. I find that scanners increased a store's labor productivity, on average, by approximately 4.5 percent in the first few years. The effect was larger in stores carrying more packaged products, consistent with the presence of network externalities. Short-run gains were small relative to fixed costs, suggesting that the impediment to widespread adoption of the new technology was profitability, not coordination problems.