ASPECTOS CONCORRENCIAIS DO VAREJO DE COMBUSTÍVEIS NO BRASIL

This work studies the gasoline market in Brazil with emphasis given to the State of São Paulo. Our first line of research investigates whether this market presents features which favor anti-competitive actions, despite being a market with several agents involved. Our empirical analysis makes use of Panel Data Econometrics and the results corroborate the idea of a possibility of collusive behavior in the gasoline market. We go one step further and investigate whether the appearance of non exclusive (unbranded) fuel resaling firms, with no connections to any fuel distributor, is really able to bring competition to the market. For this part of the research we utilize a Multinomial Logit Model and our results show that a higher proportion of unbranded gas stations in a city truly causes more variability of prices and, therefore, bring more competition and lowers the possibility of cartel formation.