The Salt Lake County Council decided last year to pay for a $30,000 study of that question. But it is right to take a second look at the inquiry's scope and cost before it proceeds.

The idea for the study grew out of the bitter rezoning battle for a Home Depot at Highland Drive and 3900 South. The County Council approved the rezoning for the 120,000-square-foot store.

It also set money aside to study the impacts not only of the Home Depot store but of a huge new Wal-Mart that is under construction at 1300 South and 300 West in Salt Lake City. But when it considered whether to sign a contract with the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research last week, some council members balked, saying that the study would be driven too much by the interests of small businesses, particularly the Salt Lake Vest Pocket Business Coalition. That could bias the results, council members said.

We agree that the county should not take sides between competitors in the free market. But the economic, taxation and planning impacts of big-box retailing are a hot topic today in several Wasatch Front communities. Proposals for Super Wal-Marts are causing debates in Sandy, Riverton and Centerville.

Local officials could use independent information from a respected institution such as the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Jan Crispin-Little, a former member of The Tribune's Editorial Advisory Committee, is the senior researcher on the proposed study.

There is a question, though, about precisely what issues should be studied, and how far $30,000 will go. The U.'s initial proposal called for a two-year study of changes in retail sales of existing businesses; price comparisons between Wal-Mart and existing businesses; changes in property tax valuations; preferences and attitudes of surrounding residents and businesses, and a comparison of entry-level wages and benefits of Wal-Mart and Home Depot compared to locally owned retailers.

It might be more appropriate for county government to study the effects of big-box retailers on the tax base, whether growth in tax receipts offsets financial incentives that governments provide developers of these projects, and whether, over the long term, big-box stores harm diversity in retailing and make communities more vulnerable to the economic whims of a few large companies. Depending on the answers, governments may have to reconsider how their policies affect business competition.

The impacts of Wal-Mart on rural communities have been studied, but there is less information available on effects in urban markets. Maybe Salt Lake County should pay the U. to gather some.