Timing, Location, and Strategic Choice under Retail Regulation
저자 Mun Su Park* YEAR
This study examines how retail regulation centered on the protection of traditional markets
reshapes retailers’ spatial and temporal strategies and, in turn, the restructuring of urban
commercial space. Focusing on three hypotheses, it tests whether retail regulation (H1) induces
spatial reallocation rather than suppressing entry, (H2) encourages late-entry strategies
conditioned by land-value dynamics and commercial hierarchy, and (H3) increases land-use
conversion of retail sites as an adaptive response to regulatory pressure.
Using store-level data on large-format retail stores in South Korea and exploiting multiple
policy interventions implemented since the mid-1990s, the study applies a logistic differencein-
differences framework, complemented by Firth penalized estimation to address separation
and rare-event bias. The empirical results show that retail regulation did not prevent transnational
retailer entry but instead redirected entry away from locations adjacent to traditional markets,
supporting the spatial reallocation hypothesis. Higher land-price growth and upper-tier
commercial districts significantly increased the likelihood of delayed and selective entry, while
store closure and land-use conversion became more prevalent in highly regulated areas.
A comparative institutional interpretation further reveals that the UK’s Business Improvement
District (BID) system internalizes spatial adjustment costs through governance-based coordination
and localized management, whereas Korea’s regulation-centered approach tends to externalize
commercial restructuring across space. These findings suggest that retail regulation should be
understood not merely as a protective instrument, but as a form of urban and real estate
governance that actively shapes the spatial transformation of commercial areas.