Chile’s Electricity Rate Debacle Has Lessons for Latin America
Successive administrations’ delay has run up a steep bill for citizens to pay, highlighting the cost of bad public policy, writes an expert.
SANTIAGO – Five years ago, after mass protests broke out over a rise in transport fares in Chile’s capital, President Sebastián Piñera made a little-noticed decision he hoped would prevent further social unrest: freezing a planned increase in electricity rates. But as time went on and Chile went through a presidential election in 2021 and two failed attempts at writing a new constitution, this short-term, politically-minded decision—unusual for Chile’s generally technocratic methods of deciding on electricity rate adjustments—became a costly ongoing policy. Successive...
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