The economy of Chile operates as a market economy and is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank. It is recognized as one of the most prosperous countries in South America, leading the region in areas such as competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, economic freedom, and low levels of perceived corruption. Despite its prosperity, Chile experiences significant economic inequality, as reflected by its Gini index, though this is close to the regional average. Among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Chile has a robust social security system, with social welfare expenditures amounting to approximately 19.6% of GDP.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. As a socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
The "Miracle of Chile" was a term used by economist Milton Friedman to describe the reorientation of the Chilean economy in the 1980s and the effects of the economic policies applied by a large group of Chilean economists who collectively came to be known as the Chicago Boys, having studied at the University of Chicago where Friedman taught. He said the "Chilean economy did very well, but more importantly, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society." The junta to which Friedman refers was a military government that came to power in a 1973 coup d'état, which came to an end in 1990 after a democratic 1988 plebiscite removed Augusto Pinochet from the presidency.
In economics, shock therapy is a group of policies intended to be implemented simultaneously in order to liberalize the economy, including liberalization of all prices, privatization, trade liberalization, and stabilization via tight monetary policies and fiscal policies. In the case of post-Communist states, it was implemented in order to transition from a command economy to a market economy. Notable proponents of shock therapy include American economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, who believes shock therapy should be accompanied by debt forgiveness.
Popular Unity was a left-wing political alliance in Chile that stood behind the successful candidacy of Salvador Allende for the 1970 Chilean presidential election.
Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was a Socialist and Marxist elected to the national presidency of a liberal democracy in Latin America. In August 1973 the Chilean Senate declared the Allende administration to be "unlawful," Allende's presidency was ended by a military coup before the end of his term. During Allende's three years, Chile gradually transitioned into a socialist state.
The nationalization of the Chilean copper industry, commonly described as the Chileanization of copper was the process by which the Chilean government acquired control of the major foreign-owned section of the Chilean copper mining industry. It involved the three huge mines known as 'La Gran Mineria' and three smaller operations. The Chilean-owned smaller copper mines were not affected. The process started under the government of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, and culminated during the government of President Salvador Allende, who completed the nationalization. This "act of sovereignty" was the espoused basis for a later international economic boycott, which further isolated Chile from the world economy, worsening the state of political polarization that led to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.
Chronic inflation is an economic phenomenon occurring when a country experiences high inflation for a prolonged period due to continual increases in the money supply among other things. In countries with chronic inflation, inflation expectations become 'built-in', and it becomes extremely difficult to reduce the inflation rate because the process of reducing inflation by, for example, slowing down the growth rate of the money supply, will often lead to high unemployment until inflationary expectations have adjusted to the new situation.
Nicaragua's economic history has shifted from concentration in gold, beef, and coffee to a mixed economy under the Sandinista government to an International Monetary Fund policy attempt in 1990.
The economy of Chile has shifted substantially over time from the heterogeneous economies of the diverse indigenous peoples to an early husbandry-oriented economy and finally to one of raw material export and a large service sector. Chile's recent economic history has been the focus of an extensive debate, as it pioneered neoliberal economic policies.
The economic history of Brazil covers various economic events and traces the changes in the Brazilian economy over the course of the history of Brazil. Portugal, which first colonized the area in the 16th century, enforced a colonial pact with Brazil, an imperial mercantile policy, which drove development for the subsequent three centuries. Independence was achieved in 1822. Slavery was fully abolished in 1888. Important structural transformations began in the 1930s, when important steps were taken to change Brazil into a modern, industrialized economy.
Parliamentary elections were held in Chile on 4 March 1973, They resulted in a victory for the Confederation of Democracy, an opposition alliance led by the National Party and the Christian Democratic Party. However, they were unable to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove President Salvador Allende from office.
Pedro Vuskovic Bravo was a Chilean economist of Croatian descent, political figure, minister and author of the economic plan implemented by Salvador Allende during his government called the Vuskovic plan. His economic policies were used by economists Rudi Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards to coin the term macroeconomic populism.
The economic history of Ecuador covers the development of Ecuador's economy throughout its history, beginning with colonization by the Spanish Empire, through independence and up to the 21st century.
The Crisis of 1982 was a major economic crisis suffered in Chile during the military government of Chile (1973–1990). Chile's GDP fell 14.3%, and unemployment rose to 23.7%.
The following lists events that happened during 1971 in Chile.
Macroeconomic populism is a term coined by Rudi Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards in a 1990 paper. The term refers to the policies by many Latin American administrations by which government spending and real wages increase in a non-sustainable way leading to inflation, then stagflation and ultimately an economic collapse that drops real wages to lower than they were before the populist period began. The paper cites as examples Salvador Allende in Chile (1970–1973), and Alan García first term in Peru (1985–1990). In 1991, Dornbusch and Edwards edited a book titled The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America which analyzed more cases like Argentina between 1973 and 1976, Mexico between 1970 and 1982, and Brazil.
The Lost Decade or the Crisis of the 80s was a period of economic stagnation in Peru throughout the 1980s which was exacerbated to a severe macroeconomic crisis by the end of the decade. Foreign debt accumulation throughout Latin America, a series of natural disasters, mass public expenditures, nationalizations of banks and financial institutions, and the shutting of Peru out of international credit markets led to a decade of macroeconomic decline. The financial crisis soon became adopted into the public sphere through hyperinflation in commodities, food shortages, and mass unemployment. By the end of the decade, Peru's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted over 20%, and poverty rose to 55%.
Since precolonial times, Peasant agricultural production has been the predominant economic activity in the landlocked country of Uganda in East Africa. Despite an active trade in ivory and animal hides linking Uganda with the east coast of Africa long before the arrival of Europeans, most Ugandans were subsistence farmers.
