Abstract

MACEIRA, Daniel  and  GARLATI BERTOLDI, Pablo Adrián. Duopoly, Differentiation and Scale: A study of the cost structures of the Pension Fund Administrators in Bolivia. rlde [online]. 2014, n.21, pp.61-92. ISSN 2074-4706.

Private pension systems exist in Latin America since the 80 's. The regulatory framework improved its instruments of intervention specially focused on enhacing competitiveness and reducing potential market failures. A key tool is to identify market concentration and cost behaviors is to determine if Pension Funds Administrators (AFPs) are absorbing monopolic rents or if they are characterized by decreasing costs. Using data of the private pension system in Bolivia during the period 1996-2004, we estimated the AFPs cost functions using parametric and semi-parametric methods. A significative and negative relationship was founded between average costs and the number of affiliates; and a small effect of funds profit rates on the systems' average costs. Also, regulations do not seem to be affecting firms' costs directly but through the number of affiliates.

Keywords : pension system; market; regulation; Bolivia.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )