Demographic Transition and Public Policy: Chile 1850-2000

Chile has experienced tremendous changes over the past centuries. Notwithstanding the importance of many of these transformations, the demographic change has been crucial, given its influence on the whole Chilean Society. These paper inquiries into the effects of the Chilean demographic transition on the fiscal policies implemented by the government throughout a 150 years period. The results suggest a correlation between demographic variables and fiscal expenditures on different goods. Particularly, the estimations find a positive impact of a younger population on educational expenditure and negative effects of the share of adult population on fiscal expenditures.