Chile

Se estudia la relación entre la inversión en investigación y desarrollo (i+d) y la productividad en el sector manufacturero chileno usando datos de la Encuesta de Innovación Tecnológica del último decenio. El análisis se basa en un modelo multiecuación en que se consideran todo el proceso de innovación y los determinantes de las decisions empresariales de invertir en i+d, así como los resultados en innovación y sus efectos en la productividad. Se constata que: i) es más probable que las grandes firmas inviertan en i+d; ii) la intensidad del gasto en i+d incrementa la probabilidad de innovar en procesos; iii) asimismo, ella no afecta a la probabilidad de innovar en productos; iv) la menor “apropiabilidad” disminuye la probabilidad de innovar en procesos; v) es más probable que la innovación en productos se introduzca desde las empresas de mayor tamaño, y vi) la productividad aumenta con la innovación en procesos.

En este trabajo se observa el vínculo público-privado existente en Chile para abordar políticas de infancia. Se analizan el papel de ambas esferas y las dimensiones y componentes necesarios para que este encuentro anteponga el interés superior del niño. Se considera el juicio de expertos mediante el análisis de contenido, permitiendo identificar las dimensiones y componentes relevantes de la interacción. Posteriormente, la metodología ahp (proceso analítico jerárquico) permite priorizarlos cuantitativamente procurando que este encuentro incida positivamente en la niñez. Se evidencia que esta interacción se desarrolla verticalmente, donde el Estado define las políticas y la sociedad civil las implementa, debido principalmente a que en la esfera pública se administran los recursos que, en alto porcentaje, sostienen a la esfera privada. Se concluye que existe el desafío de generar diálogos horizontales, en que la interacción no sea condicionada por recursos económicos, sino por el propósito compartido respecto de la infancia.

En este trabajo se describen las recientes reformas previsionales en la Argentina y Chile. Con ellas se pretendió en los años ochenta y noventa mejorar la sostenibilidad fiscal de largo plazo y el diseño institucional de los sistemas, trasladando parte de los riesgos sociales y económicos desde el Estado a los participantes. En años recientes, las autoridades de ambos países coincidieron en identificar a la insuficiente cobertura entre los adultos mayores y al bajo nivel de los beneficios como los principales problemas de los sistemas previsionales vigentes. Debido a divergencias institucionales y políticas, las respuestas fueron dispares. En Chile, un proceso prolongado y participativo redundó en una amplia reforma concentrada en efectos a mediano plazo mediante ajustes cuidadosamente calibrados. En la Argentina, en cambio, las reformas involucraron un gran número de correcciones sucesivas, con poco debate público sobre sus implicancias y efectos en la cobertura y las necesidades fiscales.

Adolescent fertility and maternity are a source of concern in the Latin American and Caribbean region, because they imply situations of adversity, have not gone down as in other age groups, and are more frequent among poor teenagers. Analysis of the micro-data from the last three censuses in Chile also shows: i) a generalized tendency for adolescent maternity to be out of wedlock; ii) the protective effect of staying in school, which comes into play after passing an educational threshold which is rising with time; iii) the leading role played by the parents of the households where most adolescent mothers live, and iv) the need for specific programmes and integral actions to reduce adolescent maternity, since although access to information and sexual health and reproduction services avoids pregnancies, it is not enough when there is a lack of alternatives to maternity or there are cultural and psychological obstacles to the proper use of contraceptive methods.

In earlier studies, the author showed that the type of development adopted by Chile differed significantly from that of the successful East Asian countries. Up to 1986, the Chilean economy had a relatively weak and technologically unsophisticated manufacturing base, and the penetration of imported inputs was mainly at the expense of the scanty domestic productive intermediation. Therefore, neither manufacturing industrialization nor industrial interdependence appeared to facilitate the type of manufactured exports that might sustain dynamic industrial development based on external markets. The present paper analyses changes in Chile’s production structure from 1986 to 1996, generally extended to 2000, using methods similar to those of earlier studies. The conclusion is that, despite the outstanding growth rates over the period, the economy still appears relatively weak as a basis for a sustainable increase in economic and technological sophistication.

The transition to democracy in Chile has been achieved in an unusually rapid and successful manner. Its consolidation is only just beginning, however, and is faced with serious challenges which will call for extensive and complex efforts in the years to come.

Processes of adjustm ent and restructuring of the production sectors to a new system of macroeconom ic incentives are slow, costly and more inefficient than conventional microeconomic theory would lead one to suppose. In this article, the authors explore the process of the restructuring of production of a Chilean metal products and machinery company and the way it gradually modified its operations from the 1970s onw ards, adapting them to new macroeconomic and mesoeconomic signals. As is well known, in the last two decades the system of incentives and the regulatory framework for production activities in Chile have undergone profound changes, gradually moving -with advances but also setbacks-tow ards an organizational model more open to external competition, more deregulated, and with less public sector participation in the field of production proper.

In this article the author analyses the situation of Chile’s agriculture and economy in tw o periods. In the first, from the end of 1973 to June 1981, the economy grew at a high rate, in flation fell, wages rose, fiscal surpluses were achieved and reserves builtup. In contrast, unemployment grew sharply, investment and saving fell, income distribution deteriorated, and the private sector’s debt reached very high levels. The balance-of-payments deficit, the worsening of the terms of trade, the higher interest rates and the very large foreign debt acted as detonators of a crisis which stamped its mark on the second period. This period, from 1981 on, is characterized by the introduction of various adjustment measures designed to correct the imbalances w ithout altering the essential nature of the adopted model.

This study simulates the social and economic effects of introducing reverse mortgages in Chile. It uses the 2009 Social Protection Survey and recent simulation methodologies to analyse the monetary gain associated with taking out such a loan, which is paid in periodic instalments over the homeowner’s lifetime. Eligible individuals are retired homeowners, who account for 70% of the older population. Monies received increase exponentially depending on the age at which the reverse mortgage is taken out. Lastly, the increase in liquidity has significant social potential, as it could reduce the poverty rate in the target group by 15%.

Social policies aimed at reducing inequalities in the labour market need to be founded upon a solid understanding of the factors that generate disadvantageous conditions for specific segments of that market. This article describes inequalities in the occupational and income structure affecting economically active women and, in particular, economically active women migrants in Santiago, Chile, and provides some insights into the reasons why these disadvantages exist. Chile’s economic growth process is seen by some as setting an example for other Latin American countries which are opening up their economies to international markets. Steps have to be taken, however, to prevent still greater concentration of wealth, the persistence of high levels of poverty, an increase in the heterogeneity of the labour market and inequalities in wage levels.

This article looks at the bases, objectives and results of the “lateral” trade policy adopted by Chile in the 1990s. In particular, it seeks to give a clearer idea of the role of bilateral agreements and to incorporate into the discussion the empirical evidence observed in the case of Chile. It concludes that the criticisms levelled at this policy, especially by those who advocate unilateral trade openness rather than other options, are based on an incomplete analysis of basic international trade theory. It is therefore argued that the economic concepts taken into account in evaluating the economic and political rationality of this strategy must be expanded to acknowledge the complementarity of the available options and to incorporate the analysis of game theory, the existence of economies of scale, the transaction costs existing in the functioning of international markets, and foreign policy elements. Through this multidimensional strategy, Chile has sought to overcome various problems and to stimulate the areas of its economy which have been most dynamic in the 1990s: exports of products with greater added value, services and capital. By traditional standards of appraisal, the results obtained do not reflect any negative impacts but they do show positive effects.

Closer integration of the Chilean economy into the world economy, based primarily on use of the country’s comparative advantages, has contributed significantly to the changes observed in the performance and the relative positioning of the regions of Chile. This article examines and compares the dynamics of growth in these regions and explains their differing performance. The faster-growing regions have become integrated into the world economy thanks to their renewable and non-renewable natural resources, the development of agro-industrial exports and the presence of cities that have linkages with the global economy as providers of financial and commercial services. Growth in some of the regions has not necessarily translated into social improvements, and this demonstrates the need for explicit social policies.

Working with census information on standardized academic performance tests and using different estimation techniques, this article analyses sociodemographic and management factors affecting the performance of Chile’s municipal schools. The evidence suggests that the system’s lack of flexibility, particularly where teacher dismissal is concerned, is an important factor but not the main cause of poor academic performance. Conversely, the differences in academic performance between municipal schools that can be attributed to management are almost twice the standard deviation of the System for Measuring the Quality of Education (simce) performance test and 20 times the increment ascribed to the “complete school day” initiative, which costs the equivalent of half a point of gross domestic product (gdp).

Latin America’s economics are prone to continual shocks, of both external and internal origin, giving rise to a marked variability in their growth rates. In order to reduce this volatility, it is necessary therefore to establish stabilization mechanisms, including in particular the instruments of fiscal policy. The economies’ increasing variability is prompting the development of fiscal norms that in-corporate anti-cyclical features. Such rules arc based on the setting of medium-term public spending goals that are consistent with the economy’s growth trend and level of public debt but are independent of the cyclical component of the level of activity. In such a system, tax revenues would perform the traditional function of stabilizers of economic fluctuations.

Against a background of increased expenditure and improved equity, this reform of public health management in Chile, set in the context of a dual health system, aims to consolidate a cost advantage over the private sector. Emphasis has been placed on the distinction between the regulatory, financial and supply functions in the public sector, and a relative opposition of interests between them has been encouraged, with a view to generating quasi-markets. The “management commitments” entered into between the Ministry of Health and the Health Services mark a departure from the strategy of resource allocation guided by historical budgets and make results the decisive factor of funding.

This article studies the effect of the stabilization of fiscal expenditure and the anti-cyclical use of taxes as stabilization variables in the Chilean economy, through the calibration of a basic macro-economic model adapted to the actual conditions of that economy. The results show that some 25% of the variability of economic growth could be eliminated by obviating fiscal cyclical impulses through constant growth of public investment and consumption and through anti-cyclical taxes. On the one hand, it is proposed that a system of stabilization of the growth of fiscal expenditure should be established, through a system of rules and degrees of flexibility subject to specific clauses.

A great deal of effort has been put into education reform in Latin America since the early 1990s. Extending the coverage of educational opportunities and improving the quality of the education delivered in schools are crucial for the countries of the region, where education in State schools has often been of a low standard. It is not enough just to study macro education policies as they are formulated by governments and implemented by centralized ministries of education. What is promised or envisioned on paper is often quite different from what actually happens in school establishments. It is important to understand, at the micro level, how schools are functioning in practice as they implement educational policies. Educational policies and social reality come together in school classrooms and schools can teach us a great deal about achieving quality in basic education. The focus of this article is on poor children in poor schools and the continuing challenges of educating children in poor communities. Chile’s national programme to improve the quality of education and educational outcomes in 900 of its poorer primary schools, known as the P900 programme, provided an ideal framework for identifying and studying the challenges faced by schools in poor communities in trying to deliver a high-quality education to their children and for understanding how and why they are struggling to meet national standards. This study is concerned with learning from schools to achieve a better understanding of what they see, in the context of their community and the student population they serve, as the practical realities of educating poor children. At the national level, a macro research methodology was used to identify the worst-performing schools in the P900 programme on the basis of their results in standardized examinations and the trends seen in these results over the 1990s. A small purposive sample of the worstperforming schools was drawn from this group and quota sampling techniques were used to ascertain their main characteristics. A micro study of each of the schools selected was then carried out, involving school visits and interviews to understand school and pupil performance and to identify critical factors that might be amenable to change. In-depth reports were prepared on each school. This article synthesizes the lessons learned from these micro studies.

This article presents a model for dealing systematically with the different matters associated with policies for developing the infrastructure necessary to support a digital economy, identifying the roles of the State and the private sector in this respect. It also describes the main initiatives taken in terms of creating and improving the infrastructure and content in the case of Chile, which illustrates the recent progress made in developing the country’s digital economy and the challenges still pending in this field. There is general agreement that Chile must move closer to those countries already incorporated into the information society, and it must do so quickly and promptly. This study helps to identify the main factors for evaluating the policy aimed at promoting access to the digital economy, which is one of the central pillars for designing policies to advance toward the information society.

Many developing countries have been applying export promotion policies during, the last fifteen years. Among them, mention may be made of Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Yugoslavia. The conditions, timing, mechanisms and effects differ from one case to another and cover a broad range of political and economic models. The variety displayed by the various kinds of past experience show above all that export promotion is not exclusively linked to a given model.

This paper suggests that Chile needs to adopt a renewed longterm development strategy tending towards inclusive development with increasing equity in order to supersede the undesirable effects of the current economic growth pattern, namely the persistence of unacceptable inequality in incomes, living standards and quality of life and a growing feeling of social exclusion. To address these issues, it first charts the development of inequality over the past two decades. It then goes on to analyse the characteristics of the production structure in the Chilean economy, as these are believed to be a determinant of inequality. Drawing on this analysis, it outlines a renewed strategy designed specifically to include the different production and social strata involved in the growth process. Lastly, it identifies the policy areas critical to inclusive development.

En este trabajo se utiliza una base de datos de panel para contribuir con nueva evidencia sobre la repercusión de los determinantes socioeconómicos en los indices de logro académico en Chile. Se advierte que los condicionantes socioeconómicos tienen un efecto estadísticamente significativo y creciente de un período a otro en el nivel de logro académico. La evidencia muestra que dos individuos de distinto nivel socioeconómico (NSE), que logran igual puntaje en el Sistema de Medición de Calidad de la Educación (SIMCE) en octavo básico, presentan una brecha de más de 70 puntos promedio cuatro años después al rendir la Prueba de Selección Universitaria (PSU). Se concluye que en un contexto de elevada desigualdad de ingresos y altos retornos a la educación terciaria, los índices de logro academic activan restricciones en el acceso a la educación superior, principalmente en la población de bajo NSE, perpetuando la mala distribución de los ingresos.

El presente artículo tiene los siguientes objetivos: analizar los efectos del subsidio habitacional en el acceso al crédito y la inversión inmobiliaria y estudiar la influencia de esas relaciones en la experiencia chilena. Luego de examinar los sistemas de financiamiento y subsidios en Chile, se propone un modelo teórico que permita analizar los efectos de los subsidios en el crédito habitacional y el equilibrio del mercado inmobiliario. Ese modelo aporta nuevos puntos de vista sobre el papel de la política de subsidios y la estructura en que se funda la investigación empírica. El análisis econométrico corrobora las dos principales propuestas teóricas, a saber: el acceso al subsidio aumenta la probabilidad de que una familia obtenga crédito y reduce el número de familias en situación de déficit habitacional. Los resultados econométricos también ayudan a interpretar la evolución del déficit en Chile.

En este trabajo se estiman los efectos distributivos de la eliminación del tratamiento diferencial de ingresos empresariales respecto de los ingresos individuales en el sistema tributario chileno, así como de eliminar la principal exención vigente en el impuesto al ingreso de las personas: la del ahorro previsional voluntario. En cuanto a esta exención, los resultados muestran que si bien a quienes favorece son mayoritariamente personas de más altos ingresos, su eliminación no aumenta la progresividad del impuesto al ingreso. En el caso de la eliminación del tratamiento tributario favorable a los ingresos corporativos, los efectos distributivos son importantes en magnitud y el impuesto al ingreso se hace significativamente más progresivo. En general, los resultados evidencian que el impuesto al ingreso en Chile es menos progresivo que lo que parece y que hay espacio para que tenga un papel redistributivo relevante en la disminución de la desigualdad en el ingreso.

En este trabajo se describe la elaboración de un modelo de equilibrio general computable regional aplicable al análisis de políticas de desarrollo y perturbaciones económicas relevantes con respecto a regiones específicas de Chile. Luego se genera una aplicación para la región del Bío Bío, que revela que el efecto de la actual crisis pesquera —provocada por la escasez del jurel—redundaría en una mayor especialización de la estructura productiva en las industrias de la madera y la celulosa. Además, se determina que sectores de escaso encadenamiento productivo con el sector pesquero se ven profundamente afectados a través de canales indirectos, difíciles de identificar sin un enfoque de equilibrio general.

El propósito del presente artículo es delimitar y caracterizar la estructura urbana de Santiago de Chile a partir de la relación entre los lugares de residencia y de trabajo de sus habitantes, que conforman zonas de mercado laboral local. Se exponen los criterios y procedimientos metodológicos empleados, de acuerdo con los cuales se establecen estas zonas y se las describe sobre la base de esta delimitación funcional, a fin de determinar en qué medida condicionan las desigualdades sociales en la ciudad. Se analizan en términos espaciales la desigualdad de ingresos, el acceso a la educación y la composición de las clases sociales.

¿En qué medida las políticas de desarrollo económico local se circunscriben en Chile a una concepción asistencialista? La hipótesis que se desarrolla en este trabajo se relaciona con que, vistas en conjunto, estas políticas sobrepasan ampliamente este paradigma. Para ejecutar el estudio se relevó una serie de 40 categorías de políticas mediante la lectura y sistematización de las políticas de desarrollo económico local propuestas por las municipalidades de Chile a través de 69 Planes de Desarrollo Comunal (PLADECO). En promedio las municipalidades proponen acciones en torno a 16 de las 40 categorías, pero son estas en conjunto las que pueden abarcar de forma satisfactoria los diversos desafíos del desarrollo económico local que cada municipalidad enfrenta de acuerdo a la realidad productiva comunal.

A mediados de la década de 1860, se observó en Chile un cambio estructural en la tendencia, que muestra déficits fiscales más elevados. Para algunos autores esto obedeció al aumento del gasto derivado del rápido crecimiento de la economía. Otra explicación común es que fue necesario aumentar el gasto para financiar la guerra contra España. En este artículo se plantea, como explicación alternativa, que se debió principalmente a una creciente agitación política a comienzos de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, que terminó con la destitución del Presidente Balmaceda en 1891. Esta hipótesis es congruente con la idea de que la inestabilidad política tiende a llevar a un desacoplamiento entre los ingresos tributarios y los gastos, dos elementos que, de otra manera, se mantendrían alineados, tal como predice la teoría del suavizamiento de impuestos (tax smoothing). En este ensayo se presenta una descripción fáctica que apoya dicha hipótesis.

En este artículo se descompone la productividad total de los factores (PTF) por sectores económicos utilizando los datos contenidos en las matrices de insumo-producto de Chile de los años 1996, 2003 y 2010. El análisis se enfoca en tres efectos: el efecto del cambio en la demanda sectorial; el efecto del cambio en la receta de producción y las transacciones intersectoriales, y el efecto del cambio tecnológico sectorial. Este análisis permitió observar que los dos últimos son los principales factores que explican las variaciones de la productividad en el período considerado. En este contexto, destacan los siguientes sectores: industria manufacturera; electricidad, gas y agua, e intermediación financiera y servicios empresariales. Estos han encabezado los cambios positivos de la productividad del país, mientras que el sector de servicios personales podría estar actuando como un factor limitante de su crecimiento. En la descripción del estudio se matizan y contextualizan estas conclusiones.

En 2012 se envió al Congreso de Chile un Plan Garantizado de Salud para el sistema privado de salud, diseñado para ofrecer un plan de características estandarizadas y tarifa plana. En este trabajo se evalúa el impacto que tendría en la demanda de seguros de salud la introducción de este plan. Los resultados sugieren que la cartera del seguro privado disminuiría un 12,39%, lo que significa que alrededor de 400.000 personas se cambiarían al sistema público, exacerbando el problema de selección adversa que enfrenta el sistema y acarreando un pasivo fiscal de 200 millones de dólares anuales.

About one third of all Chileans take early retirement. As retirement age approaches, people become more aware of the health issues associated with that stage of life. This reduces their uncertainty about their future quality of life and may lead to a relative increase in impatience. This article offers a theoretical examination of how future life expectancy affects relative levels of impatience in ways that may increase the probability of early retirement. The empirical findings for Chile show that the greater people’s future life expectancy is, the less likely they will be to take early retirement. The article also looks at how risk aversion increases relative impatience as a consequence of people’s uncertainty as to whether or not they will enjoy a good quality of life in the years ahead. The empirical findings point to a positive correlation between risk aversion and early retirement via the mechanism of life expectancy.

A cohort analysis methodology is used in this article to study Chile’s “new” middle classes. It describes the members of these cohorts and compares them with older cohorts that are still economically active. The relative size as of the 1990s and 2000s of these occupationally determined middle classes or strata are analysed, and a distinction is drawn between “new” and “old” cohorts. The question as to whether or not the emergence of new occupational cohorts correlates with differences in income is also explored. This analysis leads to the conclusion that a new middle class has taken shape that is composed of people who became full-fledged members of the labour force during the economic growth surge of the 1990s and 2000s. The upper stratum of these new middle classes occupies a preeminent position, and social class influences income levels.

In this paper we measure the evolution of inequality of opportunity in Chile. These measures assess how unequal the distribution of socioeconomic outcomes is, based on exogenous circumstances. The results show a reduction in inequality of opportunity from 1990 to 2006. The gains are of two classes. First, social service coverage has increased substantially, leading to a general improvement in opportunities. Second, the gaps in access probabilities among population subgroups have been reduced, making the playing field more balanced. These results should be interpreted as partial evidence for the evolution of opportunities in Chile. We also found a significant gap in the opportunity index across Chile, which reflects differences in both coverage rates and the distribution of opportunities within regions. The reduction in inequality is good news, but Chile still has a long way to go to achieve an equitable distribution of welfare.

Social complexity involves inter-relationships between various actors and systems that enjoy considerable autonomy to define their own interests and operating procedures. This provides a backdrop for the development of models of social coordination that combine autonomous actors and systems pursuing coherent objectives. Drawing on examples from Chile, this article reviews: (i) policy-network models (public works concession system); (ii) deliberation systems (presidential advisory commissions); and (iii) reflexive law systems (international trade arbitration). It is found that the high level of reflexiveness of these models makes it possible, albeit with limitations, to combine principles of autonomy and coherence in the implementation of public policies.

This paper analyses econometrically the determinants of ownership concentration in the Chilean stock market, paying particular attention to the effects of the Public Tender Offer Act (Ley de Ofertas Públicas de Adquisición de Acciones). Although the Public Tender Offer Act achieves its central purpose, the tender offer mechanism increases the concentration of ownership, mainly because of the “residual tender offer” obligation for which the Act provides. In addition, the study has found significant opposite responses between the controlling shareholder and the next two largest shareholders, which should sound a warning for international comparisons based on a common measure of ownership concentration that do not take account of the ownership structures characterizing Latin American markets. These aspects must be considered if the regulatory goals aimed at by minority shareholder protection bills are to be achieved.

This work uses a set of panel data to contribute new evidence on the impacts of socioeconomic determinants on academic achievement in Chile. Socioeconomic determinants are found to have a statistically significant effect, which rises over time, on academic achievement. The evidence shows that two individuals of different socioeconomic levels (sel) who achieve the same score in Chile’s Educational Quality Measurement System (simce) in eighth grade, are separated by a gap of over 70 points on average four years later, when they sit the University Selection Test (psu). It is concluded that in a context of great income inequality and high returns on tertiary education, academic achievement indexes throw up barriers to access to tertiary education, principally for the population of low socioeconomic level, thereby perpetuating poor income distribution.

Setting out from the broad capability approach put forward by Amartya Sen and working with data from the 2009 National Social Stratification Survey (enes), this article explores the influence of sex on differences in the personal capabilities deemed important for attaining outcomes that determine people’s levels of well-being or deprivation. In terms of capabilities, it investigates individuals’ ability to exercise material, cultural, social and political control over their lives and surroundings, distinguishing between the situation of men and women. Following the construction of individual capability measures, the hypothesis of female disadvantage was tested by the adjustment of multivariate models incorporating relevant controls. The findings suggest that there are non-negligible differences in capabilities between women and men in Chile.

Chilean exports have boomed since 1975, growing at an average annual rate of 6% per year in real terms. In this paper, we use Chilean manufacturing data at the plant level for the years from 1990 to 2007 to investigate the relationship between exports, plant dynamics and productivity. Our findings are consistent with the predictions of the new theories of heterogeneous firms and trade. First, 64.4% of the total increase in exports is accounted for by new exporters net of failed exporters. This effect is a combination of a larger proportion of plants exporting, a rising proportion of output sold abroad and a higher level of total sales. Second, productivity and exports co-moved over the course of the Chilean boom, exports being positively correlated with both withinplant productivity growth and the productivity-enhancing reallocation of output between plants.

This paper assesses the extent to which teachers’ actions in the classroom influence the school environment. The assessment is based on a statistical analysis of videotaped classroom observations of 51,329 teachers. The classroom environment was found to have a significant influence on students’ performance. More specifically, the teacher’s ability to handle the class as a group is consistently more significant than other measures of class environment. It was also founds that the overall school environment is a better predictor of students’ test results than the environment in the classrooms of the students whose test results are being reported. This suggests that the most effective course of action would be to improve the overall school environment, although individual teachers have less control over this factor.

A structural shift in the trend toward higher deficits had emerged by the middle of the 1860s in Chile. For some authors, this was the result of increased spending owing to a fastgrowing economy. Another common explanation is the higher spending required to finance and then recover from the war against Spain, which began in 1864. This article provides an alternative explanation for the country’s fiscal disarray during that period, suggesting that it was motivated largely by increased political turmoil at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century in Chile that ended with the ousting of President Balmaceda in 1891. That period represents a dramatic departure from the calmer and economically buoyant early years of the Republic. Thus, it is suggested that the beginning of President José Joaquín Pérez’s rule in 1861 marks both a major political realignment after the birth of the Republic and a structural shift in the trend toward higher deficits. This hypothesis is consistent with the idea that political instability tends to lead to a decoupling of taxes from spending, two elements which would be otherwise aligned as predicted by the tax smoothing theory. This essay is a factual description in support of this hypothesis.

In this study we provide evidence regarding the relationship between the Chilean peso carry trade and currency crashes of the peso against other currencies. Using a rich dataset containing information from the local Chilean forward market, we show that speculation aimed at taking advantage of the recently large interest rate differentials between the peso and developedcountry currencies has led to several episodes of abnormal turbulence, as measured by the exchange-rate distribution’s skewness coefficient. In line with the interpretative framework linking turbulence to changes in the forward positions of speculators, we find that turbulence is higher in periods during which measures of global uncertainty have been particularly high.

This article sets out to analyse differences in cognitive and non-cognitive skills between Chilean children. It first examines factors explaining the level of these skills and then goes on to distinguish between children from poor and non-poor households. The data are taken from the first Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, which was analysed using logistic binary regression. This study finds that variables associated with the mother's intelligence level and other socialization-related variables are statistically significant. However, separate statistical analysis for poor and non-poor households yields different effects of socialization. The main conclusion is that the mother's skills are a relevant explanatory factor in both poor and non-poor children's households. Nonetheless, unequal development of skills in early childhood is not due to inherited traits alone. Stimulation matters in poor households, while the mother's education matters in non-poor households.

This article analyses the Chilean government’s response to the 1999 recession that followed on from the Asian financial crisis, focusing on the macroeconomic policy reforms adopted and the institutional factors that influenced this response. The analysis is based on a review of previous research on the topic and suggests that some fiscal and monetary policies adopted during 1997-1998 exacerbated the effects of what were initially external shocks. However, fiscal discipline and the robust public institutions developed before and after the recession strengthened Chilean social protection policies. Specifically, public debt reduction in the 1990s, the Copper Revenue Stabilization Fund (FEC) set up in 1985, the structural surplus fiscal rule introduced in 2000 and the new monetary, exchange-rate and fiscal policy mix of that decade reduced the vulnerability of Chile to new shocks.

Logit, binary and multinomial models are used in this study to determine the impact of objective and perceived working conditions on workers’ job satisfaction. Possible differences between job satisfaction in the Metropolitan Region and in other areas of Chile are also explored. The data used in this analysis are drawn from the first National Survey on Employment, Work, Health and Quality of Life of Workers in Chile (ENETS). Wage levels were found to have a positive impact across the board, while residence in an area other than the Metropolitan Region also had a significantly positive effect. These results were corroborated using matching techniques. The finding that subjective perceptions have a great deal of explanatory power and that their impact outweighs the influence of objective conditions may be of interest in the areas of both public policy and business administration.

To what extent are local economic development policies limited to a welfare approach in Chile? The hypothesis pursued in this work is that, taken together, these policies far exceed this paradigm. For the study, a register of 40 policy categories was taken by means of a reading and systematization of local economic development policies run by Chile’s municipalities through 69 District Development Plans (PLADECO). On average, municipalities propose actions in 16 of the 40 categories, but these, overall, are capable of encompassing in a satisfactory manner the various local economic development challenges faced by each municipality depending on the district’s production structure and situation.

This article reviews the trend of investment in Chile and its relationship with economic growth since the 1973 coup d’état; and it documents how investment remains the main growth driver. Notwithstanding that fact, innovation helps to mitigate diminishing returns from natural resources, while technology-intensive investment, such as broadband infrastructure, helps to diversify the production matrix. The article shows how a persistent increase in the investment ratio in 1990–1998 supported GDP growth of 7.1% per year; but since 1999 investment has wavered, and average growth dropped to below 4%. The article examines the macroeconomic environment and its real instability since 1999, along with investment in infrastructure, the quality of natural resources and environmental services; and it identifies challenges for boosting both investment and innovation, diversifying the production matrix and its agents, and moving towards inclusive growth.