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Abstract
One of the major consequences of the deregulation period in the sugar and
ethanol industry was the creation of ethanol trading groups. Ethanol producers adopted
this strategy to defend themselves against the market power of fuel distributors, which, at
that time, imposed very unfavorable price conditions to the production segment. However,
coordination problems have always been a characteristic of this industry, which raise
doubts about the success of the trading groups to coordinate sales and maintain group
cohesion. Based on this point, this paper aims to examine the coordination and cohesion
of ethanol trading groups. For this purpose, a multiple case study was conducted, with
three of the four trading groups operating in the Central-Southern region in Brazil. The conclusion was that although there are coordination problems, groups, each of them with their characteristics, are
successful and allow to balance the power game between manufacturers and distributors.