Structural Transformations in Chile’s Economy and in its System of External Economic Relations

Abstract

In Latin America various international organizations, amongst them the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), proclaimed during the 1960s the need for the economy of the region to effect structural transformations aimed at breaking the classical constraints on economic growth, which were: the foreign trade stranglehold, the backwardness of agriculture, the inflexibility of the tax system, etc. During these years, the challenge presented by the Cuban experience persuaded the governments of Latin America to commit themselves, at least formally, to begin such structural transformations within the Alliance for Progress. In 1961 the United States Government, through President John F. Kennedy, undertook at Punta del Este to finance a type of Marshall Plan for Latin America, on the understanding that the transformations or reforms would be made within a democratic framework and without major breaks in the external economic relations of the region.