This paper provides an economic analysis of the choice of opening hours by shops. A market with heterogeneous profit maximizing firms is considered. The products supplied by these firms are considered as a differentiated product with opening hours as one of the distinguished characteristics. For the demand side, a discrete choice model is formulated that is shown to be equivalent to Small's model for time scheduling. First, a market equilibrium is studies in which firms are free to choose prices, which may vary over time, and opening hours. Secondly, the effect is considered of the restriction each shop has to set a single price for all its opening time and conclude that with identical firms restrictions on opening hours times are unable to remove any resulting inefficiencies.
Samenvatting