Thirty years ago, Chile was a basket case. A socialist government in the 1970s had crippled the economy and destabilized society, leading to civil unrest and a military coup. Given the dismal situation, it’s no surprise that Chile’s economy was moribund and other Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina, had about twice as much per-capita economic output.
Today, by contrast, Chile has passed Argentina to become the richest nation in all of Latin America. For three decades, it has been the fastest-growing economy in the region. Poverty has fallen dramatically, and living standards have soared.
Let’s look at how Chile became the Latin Tiger.
Pension reform is the best-known economic reform in Chile. Ever since the early 1980s, workers have been allowed to put 10 percent of their income into a personal retirement account. This system, implemented by José Piñera, has been remarkably successful, reducing the burden of taxes and spending and increasing saving and investment, while also producing a 50-100 percent increase in retirement benefits. Chile is now a nation of capitalists.
But it takes a lot more than entitlement reform, however impressive, to turn a nation into an economic success story. What made Chile special was across-the-board economic liberalization. This chart, based on the five key variables in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) report, shows how Chile moved in the right direction over time.
Regarding business taxation, retained profits used to be taxed at almost 50 percent, but the tax rate was dropped to 10 percent in 1984. It hasn’t stayed at that low level, but the rate has remained below 20 percent, so the tax system isn’t a big barrier to production and businesses have freedom to invest more. Chile’s score for size of government shows significant improvement since 1975. The pension reform presumably helped, as did reforms that lowered the top income tax rate from 58 percent in 1980 to 40 percent in 2005. But even that 40 percent rate doesn’t capture the full benefits of reform. Personal income tax brackets were widened, helping many people protect more of their income from the government, and investors and entrepreneurs can benefit from lower tax rates by setting up businesses.
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