Did They Hurt Growth? A Synthetic Control Estimate of the Impact of 'Bachelet's Reforms'

This paper uses the synthetic control method to estimate the short-term impact on GDP of the reforms implemented between 2014 and 2017 in Chile by the government of President Michelle Bachelet. I find a cumulative fall by the end of 2017 of 13% relative to the synthetic counterfactual. This result is robust to the use of a donor pool that includes economies for which primary commodities are relevant, as well as one that only includes OECD countries.