The Effects of Deregulating Retail Operating Hours: Empirical Evidence from Italy
利用意大利1990年代末允许市政当局灵活设定营业时间的改革，研究发现放松管制使零售就业增加2.4%，商店数量增加1.8%，且大型零售商就业增长更多，劳动力从自雇转向永久雇员。
We estimate the impact of deregulating shop hours on the structure of the retail sector and the size and composition of its labor force. To identify the effect of interest, we exploit the staggered implementation of a reform that allowed Italian municipalities to adopt fully flexible operating hours in the late 1990s. Our findings indicate that lifting restrictions on hours increased retail employment by 2.4 percent and increased the number of shops in the affected municipalities by 1.8 percent. In combination with estimates using individual-level data, our results further suggest that retail employment grew more in larger retail operations, with a corresponding movement of the labor force toward permanent employees and away from the self-employed.