Mikal Skuterud McMaster University
Using aggregate data on employment and hours of work from four Canadian
provinces at two levels of the retail trade industry, I estimate a simple
dynamic labour demand model in order to examine retail firm responses to
Sunday shopping deregulation. The estimates suggest that deregulation
resulted in long run increases in the employment level and average weekly
hours of work, In addition, despite evidence of an immediate shortfall
in total labour input employed below its long run optimal level, the results
suggest that were unable to compensate by temporarily increasing the hours
of their existing employees.