The Legacy of the Pinochet Regime

Abstract

Chile has experienced more than thirty years of democracy at the shadow of the seventeen-year dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). This chapter provides an overview of the dictatorial legacies with an emphasis on the distribution of economic and political power, as viewed from the most recent literature in economics. We also describe the waves of discontent which have attempted to suppress the most important legacies during the past twenty years. We end with a discussion of the current path of institutional change that could put Pinochet’s legacy to an end.