La construccion de un mercado de capitales : el caso de Chile

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of the Chilean experience with capital markets. How can Chile, prior leader of the continent in the area of financial repression and having survived the 1982-3 financial crisis, have today the most developed capital market in Latin America and one of the most advanced among all developing countries? Chapter 2 is an introduction, describing succinctly the macroeconomic transformation of the Chilean financial reform in its different stages. The construction of the capital market and its results, a priority reform objective of Chile from the beginning, is related in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the liberalization of the credit market is studied including the topics of: interest, inflation, selective controls and overall credit development. Chapter 5 reviews a series of themes related with the capital market institutions: privatization, regulation and protection in times of crisis. Chapter 6 deals with the complications of opening the capital market to the outside. Chapter 7 contains a brief commentary about aspects still unresolved in the building of the capital market. Chapter 8 summarizes the principle transition, macroeconomic, and institutional conclusions and lessons.