Juan Manuel Larrosa

Yerba mate is one of the most widely consumed infusions in South America and is an important food product in Argentina. This study analyzes the factors associated with reductions in online yerba mate prices in Argentina between 2015 and 2026. A database of 27,046 weekly price records, organized into 762 product–store series, is used. Price reductions, identified relative to the previous observation, occur in 5.1% of the records, and their probability is analyzed through logit models including product characteristics, macroeconomic variables, temporal controls, and store and product fixed effects. Yerba mate with sticks is associated with a 4.27 percentage point higher probability of price reduction, whereas products labeled as special selection and those sold in bilaminated or flexible packages show a lower probability. The contemporaneous change in the official exchange rate is negatively associated with price reductions, while some of its lags are positive. Fuel price increases in previous weeks are mainly associated with fewer price reductions. Significant differences are also found across years, months and weeks of the month, and during the COVID-19 lockdown. These findings provide evidence on the factors associated with retail price reductions in a food market characterized by persistent inflation.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how inflation and seasonality influence the weekly price volatility of fresh fruits in Argentina, examining pass-through effects and heterogeneous volatility dynamics across 46 products. Design/methodology/approach: Weekly online supermarket prices (December 2015–July 2024) are modeled using EGARCH and EGARCH-X specifications with autoregressive lags, seasonal dummies and a food-and-beverage inflation index. Four objectives guide the analysis: measuring inflation pass-through; characterizing persistence and asymmetry; testing macroeconomic effects on conditional variance and examining how product characteristics shape volatility profiles. Findings: Inflation significantly increases the mean prices across all fruits. Volatility responses are highly heterogeneous: perishable items exhibit pronounced leverage effects and high persistence, while processed and shelf-stable fruits show faster mean-reversion and lower asymmetry. Seasonal effects are significant for products with narrow harvest windows. Leverage effects appear driven primarily by perishability and market concentration rather than country-specific macro conditions. Research limitations/implications: Data cover online retail only, excluding informal markets. The inflation index is a broad aggregate; fruit-specific cost drivers are not isolated. The EGARCH specification assumes time-invariant asymmetry. Structural breaks from COVID-19 or the 2018–2019 currency crisis are not explicitly tested. Panel GARCH and time-varying models are suggested extensions. Practical implications: Identifying volatility-sensitive fruits supports retail pricing strategies, subsidy targeting and anti-poverty interventions. Consumers benefit from understanding timing and substitution opportunities during inflationary or seasonal price peaks. Social implications: Identifying inflation-sensitive fruits helps design better retail pricing, subsidy programs and policy responses. Understanding volatility patterns also supports consumers in adjusting their purchasing behavior during inflationary episodes or seasonal price peaks. Originality/value: One of the first high-frequency studies of fruit price volatility under inflation in Latin America, validating online price data as a reliable tracking tool and contributing a three-component volatility decomposition with cross-country generalizability.

En este trabajo se elabora la canasta básica alimentaria (CBA) semanalmente mediante datos de precios recopilados en línea para Argentina de 2016 a 2021. La importancia de valorar esta canasta de bienes alimentarios radica en su capacidad de cuantificar los ingresos mínimos necesarios para satisfacer las necesidades alimentarias de un individuo. Se realizan estimaciones econométricas mediante un modelo de rezagos distribuidos (ARDL) con el fin de analizar el impacto del tipo de cambio, el precio del combustible, el aislamiento por covid-19 y la estacionalidad en la valoración de esta canasta. Los resultados obtenidos indican que, tanto en el corto plazo como en el largo, las variaciones en el tipo de cambio y en el precio domestico de los combustibles afectan el valor de la CBA. Respecto del aislamiento por covid-19, se observa una influencia negativa únicamente en el largo plazo. Asimismo, se encuentra evidencia favorable de estacionalidad semanal, mensual y anual.

Reseña del libro Alejandro H. Paredes y Jimena Isabel Petrona Aguirre (2023). Lazo creativo: Un abordaje desde el análisis de redes sociales. Qellqasca: Mendoza, Argentina.

En este trabajo se analizan las variaciones semanales en el precio de 300 presentaciones de yerba mate publicadas en línea, para el período comprendido entre diciembre de 2015 y febrero del 2021, considerando atributos propios del producto, eventos temporales, costos y fluctuaciones cambiarias, recurriendo a estimaciones econométricas basadas en Efectos Aleatorios (EA) y Mínimos Cuadrados Generalizados. Factibles (MCGF). Los resultados derivados estas estimaciones, presentan significatividad para todos los grupos de variables explicativas consideradas. El impacto de cada una de ellas resulta ser desigual sobresaliendo el tipo de cambio oficial y logaritmo del precio promedio como las que mayor influencia tienen sobre la decisión de variar el precio de venta.