Market concentration and markup in the food sector
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36958/sep.v8i2.378Keywords:
price, market power, market concentration, elasticity of demand, markupAbstract
OBJECTIVE: the objective of this article is to estimate the premium prices charged by Guatemalan companies, as a result of their market power, for products in the food sector. METHOD: the premium is estimated using the markup formula, which consists of dividing the market price by the difference between the market price and market power. The sample consists of six products selected for their information availability. RESULTS: the selected products have concentrated markets, and it is observed that the higher the market concentration, the higher the premium. This ranges between 20% and 40% on average. CONCLUSION: companies marketing rice, sugar, chicken, beef, corn, and pasta exercise market power by charging a higher price than would exist under free competition. The percentage of overpricing is higher for rice, sugar, and chicken, whose markets are monopolistic in the first two and duopolies in the third.
Downloads
References
Aradillas López, A. (2018). Estudio sobre el impacto que tiene el poder de mercado en el bienestar de los hogares mexicanos. En Comisión Federal de Competencia Económica (Ed.) Poder de mercado y bienestar social, (43-121). https://www.cofece.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Libro-CPC-PoderyBienestar-ver4.pdf
Díaz Castellanos, G. O. (2023). Análisis de condiciones de competencia en mercados de alimentos. Revista Análisis de la Realidad Nacional. (237), 122-150. https://ipn.usac.edu.gt/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Analisis-de-las-condiciones-de-competencia-en-mercados-de-alimentos.pdf
Díaz Castellanos, G. O. (2024). Condiciones de competencia en mercados guatemaltecos. Boletín de ciencias socio humanistas, (10), 1-8. https://sie.url.edu.gt/icesh2024-bol10/
Euromonitor. (2024). Rice, pasta and noodles in Guatemala.
Ibarra, L. A. (2016). Concentración de mercados, colusión y bienestar social en México. Una revisión metodológica. El Trimestre Económico, LXXXIII (331), 493-523. https://doi.org/10.20430/ete.v83i331.208
Indexmundi. (2025). Consumo doméstico de arroz blanco de Guatemala. https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?pais=gt&producto=arroz-blanco&variable=consumo-domestico&l=es
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (2023). Índice de precios al consumidor 2023. Aspectos metodológicos y cambios de año base. https://www.ine.gob.gt/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Aspectos-metodologicos-y-cambio-de-ano-base-IPC-2023-1.pdf
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (2025). Índice de precios al consumidor. https://www.ine.gob.gt/indice-de-precios-al-consumidor/
Landes, W. M. y Posner, R. A. (2003). El poder de mercado en los casos de libre competencia. Ius Et Veritas, (26), 136-172. https://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/iusetveritas/article/view/16241
Ñaupas, H., Valdivia, M., Palacios, J. y Romero, H. (2018). Metodología de la investigación. Cuantitativa-cualitativa y redacción de tesis. Ediciones de la U.
Tarziján, J. y Paredes, R. (2006). Organización industrial para la estrategia empresarial. Person Educación.
Published
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Guillermo Díaz Castellanos
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The authors who publish in this journal accept the following conditions:
- The authors retain the copyright and assign to the journal the right of the first publication, with the work registered with the Creative Commons 4.0 attribution license, which allows third parties to use what is published as long as they mention the authorship of the work already the first publication in this magazine.
- Authors may make other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the article published in this journal (eg, include it in an institutional repository or publish it in a book) provided that they clearly indicate that the work it was first published in this magazine.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to share their work online (for example: in institutional repositories or personal web pages) before and during the manuscript submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, more and more quick citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
