Why do people acquire consumer debt? In this article, I draw on the case of Chile and call into question the explanatory power of both the "trickle-down" and "privatized Keynesianism" hypotheses. I argue that these narratives fail to explain why, in the context of wage improvements, consumers...

Business groups are the predominant organizational structure in modern Chile. This article tests the long-standing hypothesis that the privatization reform implemented by the “Chicago Boys” during the Pinochet regime facilitated the creation of new groups and hence the renovation of the...

We show that the sale of state owned firms in dictatorships can help political corporations to emerge and persist over time. Using new data, we characterize Pinochet's privatizations in Chile and find that some firms were sold underpriced to politically connected buyers. These newly private...

1. Introduction -- 2. The different consequences of state-led repression -- 3. The disruption of higher education -- 4. Law Textbooks, Constitutional Interpretation, and the Neoliberal Transformation of Legal Culture in Chile -- 5. Local governments under dictatorship -- 6. Female political...