From Autonomy to Cooperation. The Chilean Central Bank's new targeting in the 1930s ; De la autonomía a la cooperación. El cambio de targeting del Banco Central de Chile en la década de 1930
This article aims at analysing the development of the Central Bank of Chile during the Great Depression andthe economic recovery process in the 1930s. It primarily examines the Bank's relationship with the governmentsand the evolution of its policies. We have identified two main phenomena: The Bank's autonomy reductionand a change in its monetary policy strategy from the exchange rate to inflation. Throughout these years,the Bank went through different relationship schemes with the government. Due to the intensity of the GreatDepression and the internal institutional disorder, the government subordinated the Bank during the mostdramatic years of the crisis (1931-1932), in what is known as a fiscal dominance scenario. Once the constitutionalorder returned, a cooperative relationship scheme established between the Bank and the Ministry ofFinance under the Alessandri's administration (1932-1938). Such cooperation was made possible mainly bythe personalities who led both institutions, Guillermo Subercaseaux, President of the Central Bank, and GustavoRoss Santa María, Minister of Finance. We propose and show that the understanding between both authoritiesallowed an economic recovery in a relatively short period taking into account the impact of the crisis.This collaboration also gave the Bank an additional room for manoeuvre to recommend and implement a newmonetary policy strategy focused on inflation and not on the exchange rate as was the norm under the goldstandard system. From a methodological point of view, we have consulted the Bank's Annual Reports, MonthlyBulletins and Board of Directors' Minutes - the latter scarcely used by historiography. These primary sourcesallowed us to analyse the policies adopted at a level of detail not previously covered by other research, especiallyconcerning the views of the Board members. Similarly, the documentary corpus has allowed us to elaboratemonthly time-series to reconstruct the most relevant banking and monetary variables in real values. ; Este artículo estudia el desarrollo del Banco Central de Chile durante la Gran Depresión y el proceso de recuperacióneconómica implementado durante el Gobierno de Arturo Alessandri Palma (1932-1938). En particular, se analiza la relación del Banco con las autoridades fiscales y la evolución de las políticas adoptadas estosaños, identificando dos fenómenos de gran importancia: la reducción de la autonomía del Banco frente al Gobiernoy el cambio de la monetary policy strategy desde el tipo de cambio a la inflación. Proponemos que, si bienel Gobierno subordinó al Banco en los años más complejos de la crisis (1931-1932), durante la Administraciónde Alessandri se constituyó una relación de cooperación entre el Banco y el Ministerio de Hacienda, especialmentegracias a las figuras que lideraron ambos organismos. El entendimiento entre ambas autoridades permitióuna recuperación económica en un plazo relativamente breve y con tasas inflación controladas para laépoca. Desde un punto de vista metodológico, hemos consultado principalmente las memorias anuales, boletinesmensuales y actas del Directorio del Banco —estas últimas, escasamente utilizadas por la historiografía—,sobre las cuales hemos podido conocer el detalle de las políticas adoptadas por la institución, además de reconstruirlas series monetarias y bancarias más relevantes.
