– Pasaje de costos a precios: evidencia microeconómica para comercios minoristas en Uruguay

In this paper, I estimate the pass-through rates of cost to prices in small and medium retail stores for rice, tomato pulp and flour in Uruguay using a structural model. A demand system for differentiated products is estimated using a logit model of random coefficients. I use the demand estimation jointly with pricing rules in order to recover marginal costs, profit margins and the pass-through rates. I found pass through rates ranging from 25% to 86% in median for the whole country under Nash-Bertrand price competition and ratios between 11% and 78% when collusion is assumed. I use information about prices and quantities sold to beneficiaries of a Uruguayan social program. The work presents two relevant limitations in terms of the information used: only the quantities acquired through the social program are available and there is no information available for the universe of the varieties of each product.