Relative efficiency of hardware retail stores chains in Canada

The Canadian hardware and renovation products' retail market is dominated by four chains of retail stores, one of whom is private. We use data envelopment analysis to evaluate and study the relative efficiency of the three public chains during the decade 2000 to 2010. Our findings show the firms have been impacted in diverse ways by the latest crisis in North America: the 2005 to 2006 collapse of the USA housing bubble, the 2007 crisis in the Canadian forest industry, and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. In addition, the findings illustrate some of the dynamics within the hardware retail sector and throw light upon the sector in the recent years.