A Frei-era planning agency seeded Pinochet’s economic reform team

Evidence

ODEPLAN was created in 1967 during the presidency of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei. The office was in charge of coordinating projects across ministries. Among the young economists working at ODEPLAN were Álvaro Donoso, Ernesto Silva, Ernesto Fontaine, Sergio de la Cuadra, and Juan Carlos Méndez (Fontaine 1988, 46; see Tables 1 and 2). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1627

Categorization

• QUESTION: Interesting continuity: the Christian Democrat Frei created the agency whose young economists later served the military regime — worth checking whether this contradicts the usual presentation of a sharp break in 1973.
• XREF: connects to: Chicago economists trained under a US aid program shaped Pinochet’s reforms — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 516; Chile’s Chicago Boys network predated Pinochet grounded in pre-coup institutions. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 544; Chicago-trained economists filled key Chilean ministries under Pinochet — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1624