Q. Did prices go down? A. Yes! Scanners reduced prices of groceries by about 1.4% in their first decade. (p<1%)
Q. What happened to those workers? A. We don't know, but scanning stores reduced their wage bills by about 4.5%. (p<1%) Revenue didn't change. Data is insufficient to answer whether payroll reduction was achieved by reducing cashiers or deskilling cashiers.
I bet consumers didn't notice any benefits but did receive benefits. I bet wait times stayed the same because fewer lines were open. I bet prices did go down.
Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector (2011): http://ssrn.com/abstract=1754469
Change at the Checkout: Tracing the Impact of a Process Innovation (2013): http://ssrn.com/abstract=2215258
Q. Did prices go down? A. Yes! Scanners reduced prices of groceries by about 1.4% in their first decade. (p<1%)
Q. What happened to those workers? A. We don't know, but scanning stores reduced their wage bills by about 4.5%. (p<1%) Revenue didn't change. Data is insufficient to answer whether payroll reduction was achieved by reducing cashiers or deskilling cashiers.
I bet consumers didn't notice any benefits but did receive benefits. I bet wait times stayed the same because fewer lines were open. I bet prices did go down.