[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ude/wpaper/1315.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prices and Competition: Evidence from a Social Program

Author

Listed:
  • Emilio Aguirre

    (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social)

  • Pablo Blanchard

    (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social)

  • Fernando Borraz

    (Banco Central del Uruguay and Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República)

  • Joaquín Saldain

    (Banco Central del Uruguay)

Abstract
We use a micro-price dataset to analyze the impact on prices of a social program in Uruguay that allow the beneficiaries to purchase food, beverages and cleaning items exclusively in certain small retailers. We find that the beneficiaries pay significantly higher prices in relation to prices in other retailers. We find this result for the whole country with the exception of areas with the highest retailer density in the capital city, Montevideo.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilio Aguirre & Pablo Blanchard & Fernando Borraz & Joaquín Saldain, 2015. "Prices and Competition: Evidence from a Social Program," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1315, Department of Economics - dECON.
    • Handle: RePEc:ude:wpaper:1315
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12008/7182
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matias Busso & Sebastian Galiani, 2019. "The Causal Effect of Competition on Prices and Quality: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-56, January.
    2. Fernando Borraz & Leandro Zipitría, 2012. "Retail Price Setting in Uruguay," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 77-109, January.
    3. MacDonald, James M. & Nelson, Paul Jr., 1991. "Do the poor still pay more? Food price variations in large metropolitan areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 344-359, November.
    4. Fernando Borraz & Leandro Zipitría, 2012. "Retail Price Setting in Uruguay," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 77-109, January.
    5. Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2013. "Do the urban poor face higher food prices? Evidence from Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 193-203.
    6. Kaufman, Phillip R. & MacDonald, James M. & Lutz, Steve M. & Smallwood, David M., 1997. "Do the Poor Pay More for Food? Item Selection and Price Differences Affect Low-Income Household Food Costs," Agricultural Economic Reports 34065, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ivone Perazzo & Analía Rivero & Andrea Vigorito, 2021. "¿Qué sabemos sobre los programas de transferencias no contributivas en Uruguay? Una síntesis de resultados de investigación disponibles sobre el PANES, AFAM-PE y TUS," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 21-33, Instituto de Economía - IECON.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Gibson & Bonggeun Kim, 2018. "Economies of scale, bulk discounts, and liquidity constraints: comparing unit value and transaction level evidence in a poor country," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 21-39, March.
    2. Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2013. "Do the urban poor face higher food prices? Evidence from Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 193-203.
    3. Richard Volpe & Edward C Jaenicke & Lauren Chenarides, 2018. "Store Formats, Market Structure, and Consumers’ Food Shopping Decisions," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 672-694, December.
    4. Daniel Czarnievicz & Leandro Zipitría, 2018. "Concentración y precios en cinco mercados minoristas," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0618, Department of Economics - dECON.
    5. Frache, Serafin & Lluberas, Rodrigo & Turen, Javier, 2024. "Belief-dependent pricing decisions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Fernando Borraz & Alberto Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon & Leandro Zipitria, 2016. "Distance and Political Boundaries: Estimating Border Effects under Inequality Constraints," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 3-35, January.
    7. Zipitría, Leandro & Rius, Andrés, 2016. "Formación y determinación de precios en el Uruguay," Estudios y Perspectivas – Oficina de la CEPAL en Montevideo 39864, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    8. Fernando Borraz & Leandro Zipitría, 2016. "Law of One Price, Distance, and Borders," Documentos de trabajo 2016007, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    9. Fernando Borraz & Gerardo Licandro & Daniela Sola, 2020. "Wage and price setting: new evidence from Uruguayan firms," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 560-582, January.
    10. Stewart, Hayden & Blisard, Noel, 2006. "Household versus Community Effects: Who Really Pays More for Food?," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21053, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Klaczko Iael, 2023. "Price dispersion in Uruguay," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4662, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    12. Leschewski, Andrea Marie & Weatherspoon, Dave D., 2014. "Fast Food Restaurant Pricing Strategies in Michigan Food Deserts," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 17(A), pages 1-24, March.
    13. Larry L. Howard & Nishith Prakash, 2012. "Do School Lunch Subsidies Change The Dietary Patterns Of Children From Low-Income Households?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(3), pages 362-381, July.
    14. Juan Jiménez & Jordi Perdiguero, 2011. "Does Accessibility Affect Retail Prices and Competition? An Empirical Application," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 677-699, December.
    15. Fernando Borraz & Joaquín Saldain, 2017. "Variance Decomposition of Prices in an Emerging Economy," Monetaria, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos, CEMLA, vol. 0(2), pages 243-269, July-Dece.
    16. Arturo E. Osorio & Maria G. Corradini & Jerome D. Williams, 2013. "Remediating food deserts, food swamps, and food brownfields: helping the poor access nutritious, safe, and affordable food," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(4), pages 217-231, December.
    17. Kochen Federico, 2016. "Price-Setting in Mexico and the Real Effects of Monetary Shocks," Working Papers 2016-21, Banco de México.
    18. Bondemark, Anders, 2020. "The relationship between accessibility and price – The case of Swedish food stores," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Juan Pablo Atal & José Ignacio Cuesta & Felipe González & Cristóbal Otero, 2024. "The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(3), pages 615-644, March.
    20. Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2013. "Quality, Quantity, and Nutritional Impacts of Rice Price Changes in Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 329-340.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Keywords: market structure; market power; prices; social program;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ude:wpaper:1315. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrea Doneschi or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/derauuy.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.