Ideas, leaders, and institutions in 19^th-century Chile

Abstract

Institutions matter for economic growth. Thus, the leaders who help to develop institutions, and their ideas and beliefs, must play a central role in any narrative that seeks to explain such growth. This leads to the appearance of institutional entrepreneurs, who act in a given cultural and political environment. We focus on the problem of state building, where formal institutions designed by leaders must be consistent with a given society's existing informal institutions. We consider an analytical narrative focusing on the Chilean experience in the 19thcentury. This serves as an interesting quasi-natural experiment on the role of ideas, leaders, and institutions in the problem of economic growth and development.

Making ideas actionable in institutionalism: the case of trade liberalization in Kennedy's foreign economic policy

“…I contend that ideas by policy advisers surrounding Kennedy played a critical role in leading to further trade liberalization, and that these must be taken into account to understand the changes in trade policy in the 1960s. My argument is consonant with scholarship in the past decades which has paid increasing attention to the role that ideas play in their impact on policy outcomes, but which has only recently shifted its focus to the role that individualsas the carriers of ideasplay (see Alston, 2017;Béland and Cox, 2016;Carstensen, 2011;Couyoumdjian and Larroulet, 2018;Köstem, 2017;Morrison, 2012;Schmidt, 2017).…”

Late colonial antecedents of modern democracy

“…A growing body of related literature has since focused extensively on the factors that determine successful (or unsuccessful) processes of institutional transfers during the colonial era, attempting to uncover how exactly history matters for post-colonial institutional outcomes. This body of literature highlights a common set of factors that determine successful institutional transplants, such as the importance of individual leaders (Couyoumdjian, 2012; Couyoumdjian and Larroulet, 2018), historical institutional precedents (Berkowitz et al ., 2003; Boettke et al ., 2008; Pavlik and Young, 2020, 2021), the compatibility of formal and informal institutions (Berkowitz et al ., 2003; Boettke et al ., 2008; Gutmann and Voigt, 2020; Seidler, 2014, 2018), as well as the factor time, where recipients can experiment around and adjust the imported institutions to local practices (Seidler, 2018). Obviously, these factors are not mutually exclusive and successful institutional transplants to former colonies often present a combination of several elements.…”

“…By employing more recent and detailed data, we are able to exploit this large cross-colonial diversity for empirical analysis to distinguish different transmission mechanisms of transplanting democratic institutions to former colonies (cf. Berkowitz et al, 2003;Couyoumdjian and Larroulet, 2018;Seidler, 2014Seidler, , 2018.…”

Another Case of the Middle-Income Trap: Chile, 1900–1939

“…In this paper, we consider the evolution and relative decline of the Chilean economy throughout the 20 th century. Chile led Latin American growth during the 19 th century; a process explained by the effects of ideas and institutions that were conducive to the development of an entrepreneurial spirit and economic growth (Couyoumdjian and Larroulet 2018). Nevertheless, the country's average annual economic growth rate decreased during the 20 th century, becoming one of the countries with the lowest growth rate in Latin America.…”

“… 16 State capacity is a concept that economists interested in the problem of long-run development have recently rediscovered; see, for example, Besley and Persson (2011), and their discussion of its main components, fiscal, collective and legal capacity. However, few studies of Chilean economic history deal with this issue; exceptions include Saylor (2012), Couyoumdjian and Larroulet (2018) and Ducoing et al (2018). …”