Analysis: Brazil's 'Chicago Oldies' aim to revive Pinochet-era economic playbook

JANUARY 4, 2019 / 11:53 AM / A DAY AGO
Anthony Boadle
7 MIN READ

BRASILIA(Reuters) - Brazil’s new Economy Minister Paulo Guedes worked in Chile 40 years ago after earning his doctorate at the University of Chicago, giving him a front-row seat to dictator Augusto Pinochet’s economic shock treatment.

Even as Pinochet’s authoritarian regime left a brutal human rights legacy - responsible for the execution of more than 3,000 leftist opponents and torture of over 40,000 more - it drew praise from some at home and abroad for handing carte blanche to a team of economists trained by Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

By pursuing free market solutions, such as privatizing state companies and pulling down trade barriers, the “Chicago Boys” - as they were known - laid the basis for turning a poor country into Latin America’s most successful economy by most indicators.

Now Guedes and a team of orthodox economists he has dubbed the “Chicago Oldies” hope to emulate the Chilean economic experience on a far larger scale in the world’s eighth-largest economy.

Brazil’s new right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sworn in on Tuesday, has given Guedes free rein to apply market-oriented policies to restore growth and confidence in an economy stifled by taxes, bureaucracy and corruption.

More:
https://in.reuters.com/article/brazil-politics-chicagoboys/analysis-brazils-chicago-oldies-aim-to-revive-pinochet-era-economic-playbook-idINKCN1OY1OK?rpc=401&