Tag: Latin America

Multimarket Contact and Collusion in the Ecuadorian Pharmaceutical Sector – Master Projects 2014

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series showcasing Barcelona GSE master projects by students in the Class of 2014. The project is a required component of every master program.

Multimarket Contact and Collusion in the Ecuadorian Pharmaceutical Sector

Authors:

Jerónimo Callejas and Igne Grazyte

Master Program:

Competition and Market Regulation

Paper Abstract:

The paper analyses the effects of multimarket contact on prices in the Ecuadorian pharmaceutical sector and its capacity to serve as a tool to facilitate collusion. We estimate the effect that the multimarket contact has on firms’ price setting behaviour by applying multimarket contact models and simple econometric techniques. Our findings show that multimarket contact has a positive effect on multivitamin prices in Ecuador and could indeed be helping to sustain collusion between firms.

Conclusions:

We have tried to estimate the possible effect that multimarket contacts might have on prices and collusion in the Ecuadorian pharmaceutical industry. For the purposes of this paper we have chosen to limit our analysis and only focus on the market for multivitamins defined at the 4th ATC level. To test our predictions we tried to replicate simple techniques used by Ciliberto and Williams (2013), Evans and Kessides (1994) and Coronado (2010). We have constructed a multimarket contact index and estimated its effect on prices by using IV and then Panel Data with fixed effects estimations and also correcting for endogeneity.

As seen in section 5, our model gives robust results and provides a reasonable confirmation of our expectations: the coefficients predicted by the two models (IV and panel data with fixed effects) have the correct sings and are highly significant. Our results show that the IV estimation alone is insufficient to successfully solve all endogeneity issues, however we find that using panel data with fixed effects and also instrumenting endogenous variables (MMC) we can successfully remove the endogeneity problem from the proposed regression and obtain unbiased estimates. Our analysis shows that average multimarket contact index has a significant positive effect on price, thus confirming our predictions that the contacts between firms in different product markets can lead to higher prices for pharmaceutical products. Although we believe that this result could be indicative of possible collusive practices in the sector, the actual existence of collusion could only be confirmed by direct evidence, such as direct contacts between firms with the aim of setting prices or sharing markets.

Due to time constraints we were only able to conduct our analysis in one market and using only simple estimations and models of multimarket contact index. Therefore possible future extensions to this paper could include estimating the effect of the multimarket contact index in other markets, possibly taking into account both private and public markets; or to estimate the effect of multimarket contact by using more complex models, such as nested logit model used in Ciliberto and Williams (2013).

Read the full paper or view slides below:

Developing a Fairtrade Cocoa Sector in Nicaragua – Master Projects 2014

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series showcasing Barcelona GSE master projects by students in the Class of 2014. The project is a required component of every master program.

Developing a Fairtrade Cocoa Sector in Nicaragua

Authors:

Giuliano J. Bandeen, Armen Khederlarian, Edmund Moshammer, Tommaso Operto, and Christoph Sponsel

Master Program:

International Trade, Finance and Development

Project Summary:

This is a policy proposal directed at the Government of Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s cocoa industry achieves a very low export unit value in comparison to global competitors in West Africa, South East Asia and Latin America. Given the promising prospective growth of the cocoa world market and the higher price paid for Fairtrade cocoa, the aim of the present policy memo is to examine whether Nicaragua could benefit if farmers were to switch to certified cocoa production standards. We show that under perfect market conditions this would indeed result in higher profits. However we also identify that there are currently several obstacles preventing farmers from switching. These obstacles include minimum quantity requirements of international buyers, price information asymmetries, a low negotiation power in the supply chain, and financial and technological constraints. We propose three policies targeting these obstacles which consist of a provision of storage facilities, a credit guarantee and an educational campaign. All of them rely on group forming of farmers with mutual liability agreements.

Comparing the net present value profit of selling conventional cocoa with an investment in our proposed policies, which allows selling Fairtrade cocoa, we calculate an internal rate of return. This rate varies between both potential clients, European chocolate manufacturers Ritter Sport and Zotter and is 129% and 20% respectively. This hence encourages our policy proposal. By comparing different scenarios of government intervention we find that the highest average welfare gain results from an intermediate level of intervention. In this scenario the government would pay for warehouse construction and an educational campaign, and would provide a credit line guarantee to avoid that cooperatives pay a high risk premium. Additionally we include several robustness checks where we allow for changes in investment horizon, fertilizer effectiveness, government interest rate, farmers’ risk premium and most importantly international cocoa prices. We show that implementing our policies promises high potential gains from switching for individual farmers and the entire economy under a wide range of scenarios.

Read the full project report or view slides below:

The Aftermath of the Latin American Boom?

Throughout this academic year, we have learned about European policy making, immigration issues in the United States, OECD´s effort to put up with the current crisis, Spain’s unemployment and labor market and why Northern countries engage in intra-industry trade. My contribution to this blog is oriented towards the Southern Cone of the globe, and is a personal assessment of some of the challenges that Latin America in particular, faces as a region today.

While many countries in the north confront one of the worst financial crisis in history, the ability that Latin American countries have had to adapt to the recent crisis has been remarkable. Nevertheless, what was first called as the Latin American boom now appears to be coming to an end.

Continue reading “The Aftermath of the Latin American Boom?”