What geographic factors contribute to Chile's development?

Question

In other words, why is Chile still a developing nation? Natural disasters, geographical features, climate or economy problems based off of those or other factors. I'm looking on the web, but I would appreciate your help too. Links are greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

First of all, the climate is good for wine:

Chile is the 5th producer in the world.

Chile also has been a major producer of copper for a long time.

Answer 2

Well, that's a very interesting question and I really doubt there is a single answer. It's one of those topics you can debate for hours.

I took a small course on Chilean economic history at Uni and, though it was incredibly entertaining, the mystery is still there.

But there are some factors:

Geographical features, far from being a drawback, have become an asset: there are plenty of natural resources such as copper (the biggest producer in the world) and other minerals, fertile valleys and one of the richest and longest coastlines that ensures a big fishing float. Lately Chile has become one of the biggest producers of farmed salmon.

Unfortunately Chile suffers from a chronic dependency on raw materials and almost 50% of the GDP is due to copper

Natural disasters occur everywhere, though earthquakes have flattened several cities over the years.

But if you really want to find the reasons for underdevelopment you have to study our political history (and come up with your own theory!)

Chile started out as the poorest of the Spanish Colonies, slowly gaining some economic stability. Nothing much happened after the independence in 1818, but by the second half of the 19th century there were 2 wars that changed the shape of the country. In the end, Chile "acquired" most of the desert land in the north, rich in minerals such as nitrate.

Politically the country is always fluctuating between center right and center left governments, each with different economic agendas and different "experimental" plans.

More information: google "economic history of chile" (wikipedia has it), "historia economica de Chile" if you speak spanish.

But I would seriously recommend getting books on the subject.

There is a great book called The Mystery of Capital, both in English and Spanish, written by Hernando de Soto, peruvian economist. It's quite clarifying.

I hope it helps