Abstract

During Pinochet’s dictatorship deep reforms were implemented in Chile. Certainly, many of them constituted permanent achievements for development strategies in democracy. However, economic growth between 1973 and 1989 was mediocre (averaging only 2.9% annually) and income distribution deteriorated notably. This was related to the fact that the reforms suffered from various flaws that had severe repercussions on the growth of potential GDP and on social welfare. In the 1990s, the governments of the Concertación launched several reforms to the reforms with the goal of injecting “pragmatism”. It focused on decreasing macroeconomic vulnerability when faced with an increasingly volatile external environment and on completing underdeveloped domestic markets. The result of the set of reforms to the reforms was that, during the entire decade, there was an unprecedented vigorous expansion of productive capacity (which averaged 7% per year), along with a significant reduction in poverty (from 45% to 21% of population). A recessive gap in 1999-2001, however, highlighted failures, increasing contradictions and the lack of greater reforms to the reforms.

JEL Classification: E32; E61; E62; O11; O24.