Miguel Kast

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Miguel Kast Rist (c. 1942 - September 18, 1983) is a Chilean economist of the Chicago Boys group. He is most known for his role in public policies, where he promoted a greater focus of resources toward the needy.

Upon getting his Master in Economics at University of Chicago, Miguel Kast joins Odeplan (1973), the state agency that lead many public policy and economic changes after 1973. At Odeplan Miguel Kast focused most of his energies in creating the "map of extreme poverty", which would become the cornerstone of Chile's social development programs. In 1978 he becomes the head of Odeplan and uses his position to involve young professionals in the struggle against poverty by making them join Odeplan and by sending them to the country's outside regions to get insight into the real problems of Chile.

In 1980 Miguel Kast became Labour Minister and in 1982 he becomes Governor of the Central Bank of Chile. This was a complicated moment in Chile's economy; the exchange rate was fixed at 39 pesos per dollar and Chile's big economic groups had liabilities with their own banks. As a Central Banker he worked to reduce the level of related loans (loans made to the owners of the banks). He also created a mechanism called the "Portfolio Sale" through which the Central Bank could buy high risk credits to commercial banks. By keeping a fixed exchange rate of 39 pesos per dollar, Miguel Kast hopped to protect local companies that had liabilities in dollar. However the central authority saw it otherwise and on June 13, 1982 decided to devalue the peso. This brought a sharp loss of international reserves and Miguel Kast decided in august 1982 to completely free exchange rate fluctuations thus further devaluing the pesos and bringing a new intervention from the central authority. Under this new threat of instability, Miguel Kast resigns from the Central Bank.

Only few months after his resignation, in January 1983, Miguel Kast learned he had cancer. He died on September 18 of the same year.

Today the Fundación Miguel Kast (Miguel Kast Foundation) is in charge of perpetuating the legacy of his work.

[edit] Sources

Official webpage of Fundacion Miguel Kast

Political offices
Preceded by Sergio de la Cuadra	Governor of Central Bank 1982	Succeeded by Carlos Cáceres