Markos Mamalakis has produced another essential tome for research libraries, since mere professors will suffer sticker shock from the price tag. Volume V in this marvelous series is worth every penny, because it presents 249 carefully constructed tables of statistics on money (quantity and velocity), commercial banks (assets, liabilities, and reserve requirements), the central bank, capital markets (savings, mortgages, stocks, and bonds), and interest rates. In conjunction with volume IV on money, prices, and credit services, this compilation offers unparalleled coverage from 1750 to 1985. In all likelihood, its comprehensiveness is unmatched, not only for Chile but also for any other Latin American or Third World country.
Mamalakis has distilled the data from a rich array of primary and secondary sources, whose utility he assesses for his readers. In contrast with his previous volumes, this installment furnishes much more information on the decades before World War II, especially on the nineteenth century. For those earlier years, Mamalakis relies extensively on the work by Dirk Holz Fay, Algunos aspectos de la historia monetaria de Chile entre 1810 y 1925, and Berta Prieto Parodi, Evolución del circulante en Chile, 1879-1957. Also welcome in volume V are the historical sketches, the financial legislation, and the ample bibliography. In addition, the author supplies clear, basic explanations of monetary and financial terms and mechanisms to guide noneconomists. Although some of the writing is extremely wooden, explicating such dense statistical material for nonspecialists rarely evokes sprightly prose.
The tables, descriptions, and analyses illuminate several crucial issues in Chilean history. Information abounds on economic policies, credit availability and cost, monetary instability, and inflation. Mamalakis uses those data to argue that the quality of financial services deserves more attention as a vital ingredient in economic development. He concludes that mistaken exchange rates and banking policies under General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte at the beginning of the 1980s caused Chile’s worst financial disaster in this century, a severe setback for national development. For scholars interested in these and similar issues, this book is indispensable.
