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Collective Action and Policy Implementation: Evidence from Salvador Allende’s Expropriations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2021

Felipe González  and
Felipe Vial
Felipe González
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Instituto de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile. E-mail: fagonza4@uc.cl.
Felipe Vial
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, Department of Economics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. E-mail: fvial@berkeley.edu.
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Abstract

The Cold War triggered the appearance of U.S.-sponsored re-distributive policies in Latin America with the goal of decreasing the influence of the Soviet Union. We study how organized groups of workers increased the intensity of one of the largest programs of the time, Salvador Allende’s land reform in Chile (1970–1973). Using original data in an event study research design, we find that the local political actions of workers—proxied by land invasions—affected the intensity and location of expropriations. We argue this result can be explained by a threat of political unrest.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 405 - 440
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2021

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Footnotes

We would like to thank the editors and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions that greatly improved the paper. We also thank Brad DeLong, Barry Eichengreen, Francisco Gallego, Pablo Muñoz, Suresh Naidu, Cristóbal Otero, Santiago Pérez, Mounu Prem, Claudio Robles-Ortiz, Mateo Uribe-Castro, Damián Vergara, Harrison Wheeler, and seminar participants at UC Berkeley and Universidad del Rosario for comments and suggestions. José Benito Ruiz and Cristine von Dessauer provided outstanding research assistance.

References

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