The Impact of Corporate Concentration on the Canadian Retail Economy
Abstract
Canada’s retail landscape is increasingly being controlled by major corporations and foreign capital. This paper provides an analysis of corporate restructuring and associated locational imprints within the Canadian retail sector. It addresses the reorganization of retail capital emerging from ongoing processes of globalization, consolidation and organic growth in Canada’s Top 95 retail conglomerates. The paper focuses on three aspects of the country’s leading retailers: their economic profiles, market concentration, and the emerging location strategies. The paper highlights the dominance of major corporation retail chains, estimates market share for these companies and the associated high degree of market concentration by sector, and provides evidence of the growth strategies employed by a number of the leading retailers in Canada. The paper concludes by identifying a number of key areas for future researchReferences
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