THE ECONOMICS DISCIPLINE AND PROFESSION AND U.S. POWER IN CHILE (1930s-1990s)

Abstract

This dissertation examines the development of the economics discipline and profession in Chile from the 1930s to the 1990s, shedding light on the intersections between state behavior, foreign and economic policies, university influence and the academic knowledge they produced, and non-governmental actors, which often reinforced one another during the Cold War. The multifaceted development of economics in Chile was shaped by various transnational interactions involving Chilean, Latin American, and U.S. governments, universities, global philanthropic foundations, think tanks, and intergovernmental agencies, such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). As academic trends influenced policy paradigms in Chile, this work broadens the context of the transition from a state-dominated economy, characterized by competing socialist and capitalist agendas before Chile’s 1973 military coup d’etat, to the neoliberal reforms implemented by University of Chicago-trained economists during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). Contributing to historiographies on the history of economics and Cold War science in Latin America, this research explores the transnational connections underpinning the U.S.-dominated internationalization and professionalization of economics in Chile during the Cold War broadly defined. To illustrate these processes, this dissertation focuses on the transnational trajectories of three U.S.-educated Chilean economists: Carlos Massad (University of Chicago), Ricardo Lagos (Duke University), and Alejandro Foxley (University of Wisconsin-Madison), who rose to prominent positions in academia, state institutions, and international organizations between the 1960s and the 2000s. Through exploration of the history of economic science in Chile, this dissertation argues that Chilean scholars co-created the economics discipline and profession in Chile within the frame of U.S. international liberalism during the Cold War and demonstrates that Chilean economic intellectuals were instrumental in shaping the circulation of U.S.-style economics throughout Latin America. Massad, Lagos, and Foxley transferred U.S. reformist goals to Chile through resistance to, adaptation of, and negotiation of ideas, especially during the Concertación administrations from 1990 to 2010. As a result of the transnational circulation of economic knowledge, the network of U.S. and Chilean governments, universities, and global philanthropic foundations successfully embedded U.S.-style economics in Chilean institutions and society. At the same time, Latin American scholars were successful in shaping knowledge regarding development in the echelons of government and academia in the United States. Drawing on extensive archival research from U.S. presidential libraries, foundations, universities, and other institutions and oral history, this work provides deeper insights into the transnational dynamics that shaped the transformation of economics from an emergent academic field in the 1930s to a dominant force among Chile’s governing elites by the 1990s, while pointing out the prevalence of U.S.-style economics in Chile as one of the principal outcomes of the Cold War.