ABSTRACT
The Emergence of the Chilean “Jaguar” This chapter examines the economic policy of the Concertación (1990-2006), focusing on the ways in which its governments achieved high rates of economic growth while also dramatically reducing Chile’s poverty rate and attempting to mitigate economic and social disparities. The high level of economic dynamism under the post-1990 Concertación governments has earned Chile the nickname of the economic “jaguar” of South America, an implicit comparison with the successful export-led economies of the East Asian “tigers”: South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Chile’s economic success today exemplifies its unusual, even exceptional, status in the region. Despite Concertación leaders’ initial skepticism and criticism of the military’s neoliberal approach to economic policy, especially the “social cost” of an increased gap between rich and poor and a dramatic rise in Chile’s overall rate of poverty, none of the post-1990 Concertación governments-Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994-2000), Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), and Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010)— has changed the fundamental thrust of economic policy. In other words, Concertación economic policy in general has been characterized more by continuity with the military government’s neoliberal economic strategy than by a break with the past, and this strategy has been quite successful. In addition to high growth rates-6 to 7 percent for much of the 1990s, and 5.6 percent for the entire 1990-2005 period1-Chile’s macro-level economic stability also ended inflation as a problem. Despite the continuing criticisms to be made about the economic model-which will be discussed later in the chapter-Chile stands virtually alone in the region for having had a prolonged period of economic growth that has almost lifted it out of the ranks of underdevelopment.2 The chapter is organized around a comparison of the neoliberal approach of the military government to the economic policies of the Concertación. It draws conclusions about
the degree of similarity and difference between the two, and answers the question of whether or not the current economic approach is neoliberal. It also places Chile’s extraordinary economic success in a regional context, noting the ways in which Chile’s economic trajectory reinforces the concept of its exceptional history in comparison to the rest of Latin America.
