El Monopolio Cervecero y las Normas de Defensa de la Competencia en Uruguay

Abstract

The Competition Legislation in Uruguay is of recent date (2001), and since its approval the authority in charge of its application, the General Bureau of Commerce (Dirección General de Comercio) has carried out its first investigations. One of the most debated cases was the one of the bear market, where an agreement between Quinsa and AmBev (January 2003) meant the concentration of the 98% of the market. The investigation carried out by de DGC led to conclusion of no intervening in this case. In this paper we estimate a VAR model with representation as ECM, for the relevant variables of the market (estimating this way the price, income and cross elasticities). Based on this model we: 1) analyze the impact of this agreement between Quinsa and AmBev; and 2) discus the DGC's decision.