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The Chicago Boys were a group of Chilean economists prominent around the 1970s and 80s, the majority of whom trained at the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, or at its affiliate in the economics department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Upon their return to Latin America they adopted positions in numerous South American governments as economic advisors, many of them reaching high positions. They are credited with transforming Chile into Latin America's best performing economy and one of the world's best business climates. However, critics point to drastic increases in unemployment that can be attributed to policies implemented on their advice to fight inflation. Some (such as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen) have argued that these policies were deliberately intended to serve the interests of American corporations at the expense of Latin American populations. Peter Kornbluh claims that in the case of Chile, American attempts to influence the Chilean economy ceased once the Chicago boys had gained political influence; this may have been the true underlying cause of the subsequent increase in economic growth.
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History
The term "Chicago Boys" has been used at least as early as the 1980s to describe Latin American economists who studied or identified with the libertarian economic theories then taught at the University of Chicago, even though some of them earned degrees at Harvard or MIT (see below). They advocated widespread deregulation, privatization, and other free market policies for closely controlled economies. The Chicago Boys rose to prominence as leaders of the early reforms initiated in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's rule. Milton and Rose Friedman used the term Chicago Boys in their memoir: "In 1975, when inflation still raged and a world recession triggered a depression in Chile, General Pinochet turned to the "Chicago Boys"; he appointed several of them to powerful positions in the government.
The training program was the result of the "Chile Project" organized in the 1950s by the U.S. State Department, through the Point Four program, the first US program for international economic development. It was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation aimed at influencing Chilean economic thinking. The University of Chicago's Department of Economics set up scholarship programs with Chile's Catholic University. About one hundred select students between 1957 and 1970 received training, first in an apprenticeship program in Chile and then in post-graduate work in Chicago.
The project was uneventful until the early 1970s. The Chicago Boys' ideas remained on the fringes of Chilean economic and political thought, even after a group of them prepared a 189-page "Program for Economic Development" called El ladrillo ("the brick"). It was presented in 1969 as part of Jorge Alessandri's unsuccessful presidential candidacy. Alessandri rejected El ladrillo, but it was revisited after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 11 September 1973 brought Augusto Pinochet to power, and it became the basis of the new regime's economic policy.
Even though the Chile Project ended, the training connection between Chile and the University of Chicago continues. One of the numerous networking organizations for alumni, including the Chicago Boys, is the "Latin American Business Group at Chicago Booth School of Business" (LATAM). The term continues to be used in popular culture, business magazines, press and media. There is now a Chilean film titled "Chicago Boys".
Chile
Some of the "Chicago Boys" are or were:
Elsewhere in Latin America
Although the largest and most influential group of so-called Chicago Boys was Chilean in origin, there were many Latin American graduates from the University of Chicago around the same period. These economists continued to shape the economies of their respective countries, and include people like Mexico's Sócrates Rizzo, Francisco Gil Díaz, Fernando Sanchez Ugarte, Carlos Isoard y Viesca, Argentina's Domingo Cavallo, Adolfo Diz, Roque Fernández, Carlos Alfredo Rodríguez, Fernando de Santibañez and Ricardo Lopez Murphy, as well as others in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Panama.