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Chicago boys and Latin American market reformers collection
2011C39
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Title: Chicago boys and Latin American market reformers collection
Date (inclusive): 1992-2011
Collection Number: 2011C39
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In Spanish and English
Physical Description:
1 manuscript box, 13 sound cassettes, 42 digital audio files (2.6 GB), digital media
(0.4 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Sound recordings and transcripts of interviews, and associated material, relating to free market policies in Chile and elsewhere
in Latin America, and to the influence of economists associated with the University of Chicago in instituting them. Interviews
conducted by Tobias Switzer and William E. Ratliff. Those interviewed include Rolf Lüders Schwarzenberg, Sergio de Castro,
Martín Costabal Llona, Alvaro Donoso, Ernesto Fontaine, Gonzalo Vial Correa, Miguel Schweitzer, Roberto Kelly, Domingo Cavallo
and Hernán Cubillos Sallato.
Creator:
Ratliff, William E.
Creator:
Cubillos Sallato, Hernán, 1936-
Creator:
Cavallo, Domingo, 1946-
Creator:
Switzer, Tobias
Creator:
Lüders Schwarzenberg, Rolf
Creator:
Castro, Sergio de
Creator:
Costabal Llona, Martín
Creator:
Donoso, Alvaro
Creator:
Fontaine T., Juan Andrés
Creator:
Vial Correa, Gonzalo
Creator:
Schweitzer, Miguel
Creator:
Kelly, Roberto
Creator:
López Murphy, Ricardo
Creator:
Harberger, Arnold C.
Creator:
Cerda, Rodrigo
Creator:
Dittborn, Julio
Creator:
Larroulet, Cristían
Creator:
Silva, Ernesto
Creator:
Williamson, Carlos
Creator:
Moreno, Alfredo
Creator:
Cheyre V., Hernán
Creator:
Parra, Francisco
Creator:
Lavín I., Joaquín (Lavín Infante)
Creator:
Urzua, Sergio, 1977-
Creator:
Acevedo, Matias
Creator:
Couyoumdjian, Juan Pablo
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2011.
[Identification of item], Chicago boys and Latin American market reformers collection, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover
Institution Library & Archives.
The first truly methodical though flexible implementation of market reforms in the mid-twentieth century was by the Chicago
Boys in Chile. This cadre of market-oriented economists was trained chiefly at the University of Chicago (UC); they sprang
to public attention after the military coup that ousted Socialist president Salvador Allende in September 1973.
Between 1958 and the 1973 coup, Chile had elected successive Conservative, Christian Democratic, and Marxist governments,
all of which failed to address adequately the demands of the often combative and unruly Chilean electorate. As early as the
mid-1950s U.S. government officials were lamenting the paucity of good economists in Latin America, where the discipline was
dominated by the structuralist and import-substitution ideas of Argentine Raúl Prebisch, head of the Santiago-based United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America. With support from the Ford Foundation, a program was launched that enabled
many Chilean students to pursue graduate studies in economics in the United States, mostly at UC, and U.S. professors to conduct
research from a base at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) in Santiago. Contrary to the common assumption that
Milton Friedman was the dominant influence in Chile, a different UC (later University of California at Los Angeles) professor,
Arnold Harberger, was in most respects the father of the Chicago boys. His goal was to teach economics fundamentals to students
from Chile and demonstrate how economics is linked to the real world.
Harberger taught for decades at UC but, beginning in 1984, moved to UCLA, though still teaching for a while at UC. As a professor
and private consultant with international development agencies, Harberger is renowned for successfully relating the fundamentals
of economics to the challenges and needs of the real world through his enthusiastic hands-on involvement and his pioneering
studies on taxation, development, cost-benefit analysis, and trade policy. Although best known for his work with Chilean reformers,
he also worked on shorter-term projects with reformers from all parts of the world. Harberger is a former president of the
American Economic Association.
For two decades neither teaching nor research under the program had any direct policy influence in Chile. But deep and long-standing
disorientations throughout society quickly worsened during the Allende period; by September 1973 inflation had reached 1,000
percent, setting the stage for a military coup. After a year and a half of procrastination, the military government, headed
by General and later President Augusto Pinochet, turned the national economy over to the Chicago Boys in 1975. Given a free
hand in economic policy, they transformed Chile--not without hitting some potholes along the way--from a failing statist economy
into the soundest internationally integrated market economy in Latin America. Even before the Chicago Boys became active players
in Chile, Harberger had begun including other Latin Americans in the program; in time those people had an impact around the
world. As of 2011, several Chicago Boys are ministers in the Chilean government of President Sebastián Piñera.
In the early 1970s Hernán Cubillos, the foreign minister during the Beagle Channel dispute with Argentina, and former naval
officer Roberto Kelly urged ten Chicago Boys to produce "The Brick" ("El Ladrillo") that outlined future policies of the Chicago
Boys. El Ladrillo was based on an earlier reform program drawn up for (and rejected by) Conservative president Jorge Alessandri
(1958-64) by Sergio de Castro, minister of finance from 1977 to 1982, whom Harberger called "the most prominent leader of
the first big wave of Chilean reform."
The Chilean experience attracted the attention of governments from Latin America, Russia and former Communist Eastern Europe
to Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The PRC, rapidly expanding its trade relations in Latin America, recognized
Chile's economy as the most effective and stable in the region and in 2006 signed its first bilateral free trade agreement
in the Latin world with Santiago. As of 2011, Chile exports more to China than it does to the United States.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists primarily of interviews with the Chicago Boys. The early interviews in this collection on audiocassettes
were conducted by Hoover Americas curator William Ratliff in 1992 in Santiago and Entre Lagos, Chile. The interviewees included
key early supporters of the Chicago Boys, most importantly Roberto Kelly and Hernán Cubillos, in addition to historian Gonzalo
Vial. Five later interviews (January 2011) were set up with the assistance of a second-generation Chicago Boy and PUC dean,
Francisco Rosende; they were conducted at the Libertad y Desarrollo think tank in Santiago (Luis Larraín, executive director)
by Tobias Switzer, an officer in the U.S. Air Force studying at the PUC, and PUC adjunct professor Luis Gonzales. The five
interviewed were Sergio de Castro, Rolf Luders, Juan Andrés Fontaine, Alvaro Donoso and Martín Costabal. Full transcripts
of the interviews are available, as are a recorded lecture and PowerPoint presentation on the Chicago Boys that Luders gave
at the Hoover Institution in March 2011.
The main non-Chilean market reformer in this collection is Domingo Cavallo, a doctoral graduate of Harvard University, who
was minister of the economy under two Argentine presidents. Material on him includes an interview conducted by Ratliff in
Buenos Aires in 1993; a seminar (including a discussion of currency boards and related matters with Milton Friedman), and
an interview with Ratliff, at the Jordan Winery in Healdsburg, California in May 1997; and a lecture in 2007 at Stanford University.
In addition to the interviews there is a copy of "El Ladrillo," some manuscripts and papers of Cubillos and Cavallo, and other
related documents.
An increment received in 2011 consists of interviews with Arnold C. Harberger. Alito (as Harberger is known in Latin America)
was a guest at the Hoover Institution for a week in late June 2011 and gave interviews on the Chicago Boys and related projects.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Audiotapes
Free enterprise
Latin America -- Economic conditions
Chile -- Economic conditions