Preference Shifts, Structural Breaks and the Domestic Demand for Chilean Wine

This paper investigates possible changes in Chilean domestic consumer preferences for wine through the estimation of a demand function that allows for structural breaks and regime shifts in the cointegrating relationship. Our findings support both higher own–price elasticity and higher substitutability between wine and beer after 1982, when a shift in regime in the demand function is found. We believe our findings might be due to the introduction of an increasing number of wine varieties in Chile during the last two decades. We argue that more wine varieties affect domestic consumer preferences by altering the product diversity available in the domestic market.