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Sunday shopping or Sunday trading refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognises as a day of rest. Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but some countries and subnational jurisdictions continue to ban or restrict Sunday shopping. == Arguments in favour of Sunday shopping == Sunday shopping has its main argument in the consumer welfare. Extended opening hours afford more time to individuals in order to make their choices. They allow individuals to avoid peak shopping hours and having to queue in their free time.〔(Liberalizing shop opening hours ), Cécile Philippe, ''Institut Economique Molinari'', 13 avril 2007.〕 A deontological argument based on individualist principles holds that business owners should be free to set whatever hours they please and to hire whatever workers are available, able, and willing to work during those hours. Public authorities hurt consumers by keeping stores from choosing their opening hours according to their market presumptions of consumers' demand. According to OECD, demand has strongly evolved towards greater flexibility, also due to a greater diversity of working hours in the economy in general, as well as to a higher female labour participation in the labour market.〔OECD Economic Studies, No. 32, 2001/1.〕 Before the liberalisation of shop opening hours in a country like Austria, for example, one could observe an increase in cross-border shopping towards countries with more liberal shopping hours.〔 Studies of liberalisations in North America and Europe suggest that Sunday shopping interdictions depress employment growth, harm prospective workers with non-traditional schedules, and may not protect consumers from price increases. Although research has confirmed the suspicion that larger outlets benefit to a greater extent from the liberalisation of shop-closing regulations than their smaller counterparts, such regulations serve only to protect the inefficiency of the latter, thereby harming consumers.〔(IEA )〕 It has not been proven that Sunday shopping hurts retailers by leading all of them to open longer hours. Consumer preferences can point in the direction of an extension of shop opening hours in a given area without this need arising in another area. In Spain, for instance, where relatively few restrictions survive, retail stores are open an average of 46 hours per week. In Sweden, 15 years after liberalisation, supply as regards shop opening hours has not yet standardised itself. On the contrary, if 80% of the department stores and supermarkets are open on Sunday, only half of corner shops and 48% of furniture stores are open on this day.〔 Final extension of opening hours, for each individual firm, will depend on:〔 * the price consumers are ready to pay for a 24/7 offer of certain products, as prices can rise due to higher wages for Sunday workers; * the wage that workers will or can demand in order to work additional hours. An economic model of free competition in prices and opening hours with free entry has shown that restrictions on opening hours aggravate a market failure: entry is excessive and opening hours are underprovided. The model predicts the impact of a liberalization of opening hours: in the short run prices will remain constant, but increase in the long run. Concentration in the retail sector will rise and opening hours will increase in two steps, immediately after deregulation and further over time. Finally, employment in the retail sector increases.〔(Tobias Wenzel (2007) )〕 Campaigns for deregulation of Sunday shopping have been put forward mainly by liberal parties. But as long ago as 1899, even US Christian churchgoers were calling for a reform of the laws in the US, because the result was not more people going to Church but "enforced idleness": George Orwell uses the term in ''Down and out in Paris and London'' to remark that the worst problem of the underclass is being made to wait.〔Louis XIV of France famously was annoyed by being "nearly made to wait".〕 In ''"The Spike"'', an essay about workhouse conditions, Orwell remarks that one could not leave on a Sunday but was bound over until the Monday. Prison reformists often argue that enforced idleness in prison helps neither those inside nor outside. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sunday shopping」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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