Performance of brazilian supermarket companies: a data envelopment analysis approach

Abstract

This article applies Data Envelopment Analysis, DEA, to compare the relative performance of the 100 smallest supermarket companies from the list of the 300 largest in the sector. This is in consideration of relevance that has been given to DEA by academics. Results disclose that all single store companies have performance problems related to economies of scale while chain stores have problems more frequently related to poor technical efficiency. The ten largest supermarket companies have better performance, especially with regard to efficiency of scale, than the ten smallest supermarkets studied.