Competition in the Brazilian loan market: an empirical analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review some of the existing tests for competition in Brazilian banking, as well as to propose an alternative. After the description of the institutional setting of the Brazilian Banking system on this period, the competition tests on the literature were reviewed, beginning with the test proposed by Panzar and Rosse (1987). The market does not seem to be in long-run equilibrium, implying only the market does not seem to find itself in collusive outcome. The next step was to try a new methodology, applied by Moreno, Martínez and Ruiz (2006) for the Spanish banking market. On this methodology, in which the assumption of equality of conduct parameters between firms and time periods is relaxed, the results indicate that, for some firms and in some time periods, a cooperative conduct in fact is present.