La simple aritmética de la nueva política de precios de las gasolinas y el diesel

Abstract

The composition and magnitude of the price increase for gasoline and diesel, initiated on January 1, 2017, the largest single movement in real terms of the Twenty-First Century, applied in a differentiated manner depending on the logistic conditions of the 90 regions in which the country was divided, is analyzed. The movement preluded the liberalization of fuel prices, starting in February 2017. The high share of indirect taxes in the new price levels is highlighted, along with the arguments used by the federal government to fix them, with evident technical and social communication shortcomings. The main hypothesis of the work is that the price adjustments served to pave the way for national and international private oil companies to start importing fuels, as envisaged in the energy reform, while the federal government obtains more tax resources to mitigate the deterioration of public finances. This later was originated by the reduction of crude oil exports prices, the lower production of hydrocarbons and the large service of the public debt, without evidencing the benefits of the increase of two and a half percentage points in relation to the gdp of non-oil tax revenues, due to the 2013 fiscal reform.