Book Chapter
Three Decades of Neoliberal Economics in Chile

Achievements, Failures, and Dilemmas

The Chilean development story of the last two to three decades is a mix of successes in the macro, growth, poverty and trade fronts but also of failure in reducing chronic inequality of income and wealth.

In addition, the current growth patterns have serious impacts on the environment, natural resources and energy demand. Adverse features of the Chilean development model include urban insecurity and rising crime, pollution, pressure on natural resources, congestion and social stratification in access to education, health and pensions.

A reduction in social inequality would require changes in several fronts: more public-sector resources devoted to education; curtailing current concentration of wealth and market shares in banking, retail trade, and private pensions systems, private health provision, and other sectors; more effective regulation of big business; rebalancing of labour unions’ bargaining power capacities and effective support to the sector of small and medium size enterprises.

Chilean democracy would benefit from a redefinition in development priorities towards less power for the dominant elites (economic and political) and broader social participation for the middle class and the working people to support dynamic and more equitable development.

Endorsements

'This valuable collection of studies is full of new insights. It confirms that a deep understanding of economic history really matters for policy makers in developing countries.' - Nicholas Crafts, Professor of Economic History, Warwick University

'Comparative analysis of development successes based on country case studies is a useful complement to statistical cross-country regressions. While they have no claim at establishing causality, they give us a richness of detail that reliably suggests policy approaches to success. The 21 case studies from all five continents presented in this book show that success can be achieved, that there are many ways of engineering success, but that good governance and market forces play key complementary roles. While we have a good understanding of how markets work, knowing how to make developing country governments assume developmental functions is one of the greatest challenges to the development profession. This book makes an important contribution in that direction that will be of great assistance to both scholars and policy makers.' - Elisabeth Sadoulet, Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of California at Berkeley

'Nations are not destined to fail, however most fail to be successful. The case studies in this book provide both aspiration and insights on how to guide a nation away from failure towards success. This book will become an essential reading for scholars and for policy makers in developing countries, international development community, and in developed countries as well.' - Justin Yifu Lin, Professor and Honorary Dean, National School of Development, Peking University and Former Chief Economist, World Bank