Reserva de cabotaje marítimo de carga y libre competencia: el caso chileno

This article analyzes the current legal restrictions in Chile to maritime cargo cabotage from a competition policy and antitrust perspective. We describe the main existing legal restrictions to the maritime cabotage reserve and estimate its economic impacts and welfare losses in comparison to the case of cabotage liberalization. The latter is carried out through a simple partial equilibrium model, an estimate of the cabotage´s price decline due to cabotage liberalization and a measure of demand price elasticity as reported in the academic literature. Our estimates indicate that cabotage restrictions have a cost between USD$300 and $400 million per year. In addition, we analyze the effects of the so called ‘accessory regulation’ setting and additional tax of 20% for the temporary use of foreign ships destined for cabotage services. Based on the aforementioned analysis, we argue for liberalization of maritime cabotage, including the removal of the additional tax on cabotage services, as a policy to enhance competition, benefits consumers and produce economic efficiency gains.