The activities of Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers have become rallying cries for both sides of the political aisle. Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox's book, The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy, is aimed at those involved in debates over Wal-Mart's impact on worker wages, labor issues, and health-insurance and land-use policies.

The Wal-Mart Revolution provides useful facts about the company, the U.S. retail industry, labor economics, health-care policy, and land-use realities in America today. Economist Vedder and public-private partnerships expert Cox painstakingly analyze available evidence before concluding that the economic transformation in American retailing which is personified by Wal-Mart has largely been good for Americans and the economy. Wal-Mart's basic business strategies have had a profoundly positive impact on America's productivity, wages, consumer prices, and other key economic variables.

Though the book was written without any cooperation from Wal-Mart, Vedder and Cox address several criticisms often lobbed at the company and demolish them one-by-one:

Richard Vedder is a visiting scholar at AEI, and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, D.C.

Wendell Cox is an international public policy consultant and principal of Wendell Cox Consultancy (Demographia).