Incidencia Tributaria en el Mercado de las Gasolinas en Chile*

Abstract

Gasoline taxes usually represent a large fraction of the final price of gasoline paid by consumers. As a result, when gasoline prices increase too much public pressure builds to reduce or even eliminate gasoline taxes, which implicitly assumes these taxes are fully passed on to final consumers. However, there exist few empirical studies about the incidence of gasoline taxes, especially for developing countries. Using monthly data for the period 2000-2011, this work contributes to the literature providing empirical evidence about the gasoline tax incidence on prices in Chile. The results show a tax pass-through ranging between 100% and 120% in the wholesale markets of 93 and 97 octane unleaded gasoline, while in retail markets the tax pass-through rate is 110% and 100%, respectively. Therefore, gasoline taxes in Chile are more than fully borne by consumers, which is a result consistent with the existence of some degree of market power in gasoline markets