Local income inequality and product variety: empirical evidence
利用奥地利餐饮业数据，研究发现地方收入不平等程度越高，企业数量越多、产品种类越丰富，且常见产品变体更少，表明消费者收入异质性显著影响产品多样性。
Abstract This article investigates the relationship between local income inequality and firms’ location and product choices. Using detailed information on income at a regionally disaggregated level and individual data on Austrian restaurants, we show that product variety crucially depends on the distribution (in addition to the level) of income. Local markets with higher income inequality are characterized by a larger number of firms, offering a wider range of products and less common product variants. These findings suggest that local demand is substantially influenced by the heterogeneity of consumers’ income endowments, resulting in large differences in product variety.