Evidence on search costs under hyperinflation in Brazil: The effect of Plano Real

Abstract

<p>Plano Real put an end to hyperinflation in 1994 and significantly altered price-setting behavior in Brazil. This paper investigates the impact of Plano Real on search frictions. We estimate a nonsequential search model for homogeneous goods to structurally retrieve consumers' search costs. The dataset comprises 11,673 store-level price quotes collected from 1993 to 1995 by FIPE to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the city of São Paulo. The strategy consists of using Plano Real as a structural breakpoint in the data. We estimate the model splitting the data into before (Jan-93 to Jun-94) and after (Aug-94 to Dec-95) the plan, and we find evidence on first-order stochastic dominance of the search-cost distribution of the former into the latter; that is, search costs are higher during hyperinflation. The majority of consumers search only once or twice before buying an item, but this share is marginally higher during hyperinflation (84% vs 79%). In addition, after Plano Real, a larger share of consumers are willing to quote prices in all stores before committing to a purchase. We also document evidence of the effect of the plan on shrinking price-cost margins. When searching is less costly, stores lose market power.</p>