Banco Central de Chile, 1925-1964: Una Historia Institucional (review)

It is difficult to review this book in an academic journal for many reasons. First, the author is neither an academic nor an economic/ business historian. This is not necessarily a problem. However, since Carrasco's range of secondary sources is very limited, with many important general works neglected, the lack of formal training becomes an issue. There are, also, plenty of straw men in this book (e.g., "most historians say X," without references). Second, the book is written by a former general manager (Gerente General) of the Central Bank during the period 1994-2005, who started his career in the bank in 1965. Third, the book was commissioned by the Central Bank itself. Thus, the impartiality of both the author and the editorial board of the bank may be compromised. For example, the period covered stops in 1964, because it was considered that more recent years would present "some [political] difficulties" (8). More importantly, there was no clear judgment from Carrasco on the performance of the bank during the period under study.

These caveats aside, this is a very welcome contribution to the field since there is no extant history of the Chilean Central Bank (created in 1925) and very little has been written on the monetary history of Chile. Carrasco's main primary sources are the minutes of the Central Bank's directory meetings (Actas de las Sesiones del Directorio). These minutes are not available to the general public (not even to researchers) and provide a wealth of information. Although the Central Bank started a process of transparency in 1999, by for example, publishing the minutes of the Sesiones del Consejo, this admirable process has not been extended to the pre-1999 period. Carrasco's sources are still labelled as "confidential" (7), and it is as yet unclear how the new transparency law recently promulgated in Chile will affect access to these documents. It would be very beneficial to economic and business historians worldwide if the Central Bank of Chile would follow the path of many other Central Banks around the world by promoting free and open access to its private archives from 1925, as it has the resources for so doing. Overall, Carrasco is lucky to have been granted the exclusive privilege of accessing the whole of the Central Bank collections. Yet, this factor poses a fourth difficulty in judging this book since we do not know the full extent of Carrasco's sources nor can they be independently verified.

The book is divided into eleven chapters. Chapter 1 is on the preorigins of the Central Bank. The first section consists of a list of the main political and economic events in the history of Chile c .1860-1925, which at times lacks an analytical thread. It also contains some factual errors. For example, it is said that Chañarcillo silver deposit was discovered in 1848 (16), when it was actually discovered in 1832. This chapter, though, has a very useful review of the first banking legislation of Chile from 1860 and of the monetary history of Chile before 1925. It ends with a good description of the first attempts to create the Central Bank from c. 1912 and the interesting discussions, which took place in the Chilean Senate.

Chapter 2 deals with the proper establishment of the Central Bank in 1925, following the arrival in Chile of the so-called Kemmerer mission. Professor Kemmerer led a "private" U.S. mission sponsored by the Chilean government to assist the government in the creation of new financial institutions. This is a well-written and interesting chapter, which makes use not only of the Central Bank papers, but also of the Kemmerer papers, in the possession of Princeton University. This year (1925) also saw the promulgation of a new constitution in the country, which lasted until Pinochet's 1980 constitution, and the creation of the Central Bank must be seen within...