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  3. The privatization origins of political corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet regime

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Artículo en revista académica

The privatization origins of political corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet regime

  • person Felipe González

    Mounu Prem y Francisco Urzúa I.

  • class The Journal of Economic History, June 2020. Vol. 80, Issue 2. Pages 417-456

Abstract: We show that the sale of state owned firms in dictatorships can help political corporations to emerge and persist over time. Using new data, we characterize Pinochet’s privatizations in Chile and find that some firms were sold underpriced
to politically connected buyers. These newly private firms benefited financially from the Pinochet dictatorship. Once democracy arrived, they formed connections with the new government, financed political campaigns, and were more likely to appear in the Panama Papers. These findings reveal how dictatorships can influence young democracies using privatization reforms