http://www.quepasa.

cl/articulo/negocios/2017/09/en-4-anos-chile-cae-7-puestos-en-ranking-de-
libertad-economica.shtml/

Chile fell from place 12 to 15 in the annual report of World Economic Freedom 2017 published
today, consolidating a tendency that moves away more and more from the eighth place that
achieved in 2012 and 2013, its best historical location in the list elaborated by Fraser Institute, in
collaboration with Freedom and Development for the case of Chile.

With data for the year 2015, the country earns a score exclusively on the stability of the currency,
while it regresses on the remaining four variables: Government Size, Legal Structure and Private
Property, Freedom for International Trade and Regulation.

In the latter, the most pronounced contraction is seen in the regulation of the labor market, where
it reached(pasado simple) barely 4.78 points -0.36 points less than a year earlier-, ranking 139th
out of a total of 159 countries. At the end of 2014 and during 2015 began the discussion of labor
reform, recalled Marcos Balmaceda of Freedom and Development, who argued that the
consequent "increased trade union power, given by inter-company negotiations or unsuccessful
trade union ownership, clearly affected, along with other proposals, the perception of the Chilean
labor market ".

In this way, the projections for the next reports are not encouraging, given the two-year gap
presented by the report. "For how Chilean politics and economy has been(voz pasiva presente
perfecto) given, this indicator will(futuro will) continue to worsen. The future is not too promising,
"Balmaceda said.

His opinion is shared by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, of the Cato Institute (who participates as an associate
for the review of the US), who said that the setback is not a matter of time and will be accentuated
in the coming years. "We already knew that this is a government whose ideological orientation
was aimed at reducing economic freedom in Chile and we have seen complete reforms in that
regard in the labor field, tax, in terms of spending, discussion on the constituent," he adds.

Likewise, in the section on Freedom in international trade, the drag was due to a fall of 1.02 points
to 6.87 in the Regulation of trade barriers, the largest(adjetivo superlativo) backlash of the entire
report of Chile.

In reviewing the sub-indexes for each category, the ones that also helped to reduce the Chilean
position, amid the stability shown in many fields, come to light.

For example, the country manages to maintain its score in transfers and subsidies, companies and
government investments and in the maximum marginal tax rate, with a fall of 0.4 in the
government's spending score, which ends up pushing back the category of size of government. In
fact, public expenditure grew by 7.4% in 2015, while fiscal debt rose from 14.9% of GDP in 2014 to
17.4%.