Fighting Inflation from the Ground Up: The Untapped Role of Antitrust in Brazil

This paper argues that antitrust enforcement can play a strategic role in Brazil’s fight against inflation, complementing traditional monetary policy tools. While the Central Bank relies on interest rate adjustments, this approach often fails to address sector-specific price distortions driven by collusion, market power, or entry barriers—issues that fall squarely within the Brazilian antitrust authority (CADE)’s mandate. We show that CADE’s enforcement activity disproportionately target