Art Carden, Charles Courtemanche, and Jeremy Meiners just published a paper on the cultural consequences of Wal-Mart. Here’s the abstract:
This essay explores the relationship between commerce and culture in the context of the recent debate over the social effect of Wal-Mart. In spite of much public debate, little is known about how Wal-Mart affects values. Using data collected from multiple sources, we show there is little evidence that Wal-Mart makes communities more conservative or more progressive.
