Chilean economic development 1810-2005: GDP growth levels and rates, as well as structure
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Abstract
The country soon will complete two centuries of republican organization; for an economic historian, a quasi natural question then refers to its development path. And the aim of this paper is precisely to make a quantitative description of this path. For the authors this question is not new. They have been working on the subject for the last ten or so years and a description of this work can be found in two Working Papers. In the following pages a synthesis of this work is made and the main findings are discussed. The paper begins with an overview of the literature. Then, in the second section, it describes the methods and sources employed in the construction of total and sectorial GDP. No unique construction method is used to generate the 1810-2003 GDP series, but data availability determined three methodological periods, namely 1810-1860; 1860-1940; and 1940-2003. The first of these had to face in addition the challenge posed by the institutional transition problem, from Colony to Republic. The third and last section centers then on result obtained.