The Privatization Origins of Political Corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet Regime

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; City St Georges, University of London
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050719000780
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 417-456
• 关键词: revolving-door; connections; TRANSITION; OWNERSHIP; work; persistence; state

摘要

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 regime. 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.