Learning objectives
Students will acquire the necessary skills to critically evaluate how the retailing sector has developped in connection with different models of industrialization as well as to detect, in the past and nowadays, the role played by innovation in the large distribution industry.
Prerequisites
A basic knowledge of economic history.
Course unit content
The course takes into analysis the processes that, from the 19th century to the last decades of the 20th century, brought to the birth, development, and change of the large retail sector in Europe and in the United States. To do so, a set of crucial topics will be considered: the retail institutions (Department stores, chain store systems, “Ford stores”, supermarkets, and hypermarkets); the retail industry development from a comparative geographical angle (Great Britain, Germany, and Italy); the social and economic spin-offs of the technologies adopted by large retail firms (as for refrigeration, accounting, transports, etc.).
Bibliography
Cliquet G. and Perrigot R., French Hypermarket History and Future with Issues for American Supercenters, in Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing, 2005, pp. 78-91; Ellickson P., The evolution of the Supermarket Industry: From A&P to Wal-Mart, 2007, pp. 1-17 (paper presentato alla Grocery Store Anti-Trust Conference organizzata dalla Federal Trade Commission); Scarpellini E., La spesa e uguale per tutti: l’avventura dei supermercati in Italia, Venezia, Marsilio, 2007, pp. 29-37, 41-56, 63-76; Shaw G., The evolution and impact of large-scale retailing in Britain, in Benson J., Shaw G. (eds.), The evolution of retail systems, c. 1800-1914, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1992, pp. 136-165; Zimmerman M., The Super Market. A Revolution in Distribution, New York, McGraw-Hill ,1955, pp. 16-68 e 289-327.
