Hernán Büchi

Hernán Alberto Büchi Buc (born March 6, 1949) is a Chilean economist who served as minister of finance of the Pinochet dicatorship. In 1989 he ran unsuccessfully for president with support of Chilean right-wing parties.

Büchi was born into a Roman Catholic family of Swiss, German and Croatian descent arrival to Iquique. After receiving a diploma in mining at the University of Chile he went to the U.S. and earned an MBA from Columbia University in 1975. Despite this fact he is often mentioned together with the Chicago Boys who studied economics at the University of Chicago, because he represents similar neoliberal market positions. In 1975 Hernán Büchi began as a consultant of the Secretary of Economics, Pablo Baraona, as a Chair of the Board of Directors of the state owned sugar refiner Industria Azucarera Nacional as well as the state-owned telephone company Compañía de Teléfonos (since 1978).

In 1979 he became Vice-Secretary of Economics (1979-1980) for the ministry of treasury. He worked with the Minister for Labor and Social Security José Piñera, who started the private pension system in Chile. In 1981 he was appointed Vice-Secretary of Health (1980-1983) where he prepared the privatization of health insurance. During the 1983 / 1984 recession in Chile he became Minister of Planning (1983-1984)(ODEPLAN) and Superintendent of Banks and Financial Institutions (1984-1985). He was Minister of Finance(the Treasury) between 1985 and 1989 and returned to the principles of monetarism. Büchi's appointment as Finance Minister, according to British historian Edwin Williamson

...marked the beginning of economic recovery. Büchi's strategy was to create the financial conditions for stable, export-led growth and to reorganize the productive structures of the export sector. Control of public spending, periodic devaluations, and incentives for domestic savings, foreign investment and the repatriation of capital gradually brought inflation down to 12 per cent by 1989, the lowest rate in Latin America. A vigorous campaign to sell parcels of the public debt to private investors in exchange for shares in Chilean industries reduced the nation's debt burden by over $4 billion...Economic growth averaged between 5 per cent and 6 per cent in 1985-8, the highest rate in the region.

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