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The recent work of Mariana Mazzucato on the role of public funding in economic development seeks to rebalance debates on innovation to highlight the role of the State, as opposed to the dominant narrative of unregulated private initiative. This is particularly relevant for the case of the Chilean salmon industry where, besides the diffusion of technology and management practices by a combination of international agencies and private initiatives, its boom has been supported by considerable national public funding since the 1970s and especially after the transition to democracy in 1990. In this regard, the main argument of this paper is that the innovation system of the Chilean salmon industry should be understood within a neostructural model of economic development. However, although the State has had an essential role in financing and promoting innovation, we found that it has not served as a guiding entity (directionality) for how innovation should be undertaken. This is important to recognise since it helps to explain why the Chilean salmon industry has been able to direct innovation towards its own economic interests without attending to broader social issues related to its operations, despite this public expenditure. The main conclusion is that, due to the type of knowledge developed and how innovations are valued within the sector's innovation system, the goal is to increase volume, reduce costs, and marginally mitigate negative socio-ecological externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chile needs to increase its installed electric capacity to support economic growth. Currently, the total demand is 67,564 GW h and an additional 22,508 GW h will be needed by 2020 to meet the energy demand of industrial projects. The Chilean mining industry is a major electricity consumer in the country accounting for one third total consumption over today. Solar energy has the highest potential for growth in northern Chile as the north of the country hosts the highest solar resources of the world. In this paper we present a comprehensive review of the energy supply and demand status, planning and prospects in the country with focus on solar photovoltaic- and solar thermal-projects. As of the end of 2014, a solar capacity of 2384 MW are operational and under construction, and more than 10,000 MW of solar power plants have been proposed; most solar projects are located in northern regions where the mining takes place. Considering a conservative scenario where one half of the proposed solar projects would be operational before 2020, solar technology could cover a great part of the country’s energy requirements. We evaluated eight operating PV plants and three operating solar thermoelectric plants based on a multi-criteria assessment to offer a reference point for assessing future projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water industry faces the challenge of implementing privatization reforms. This process mainly adopts the following two approaches: the privatization of public water and sewerage services (WSS) and the privatization of water companies’ ownership. This paper investigates the impact of both privatization approaches on changes in productivity in the water industry. In doing so, the Luenberger productivity indicator (LPI) was computed for a sample of Chilean water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) for the period 1997–2013. Unlike the most commonly applied index (Malmquist productivity index), the LPI simultaneously takes into account output expansion and input contraction. The results evidenced that productivity in the Chilean water industry decreased after its privatization. However, in the sub-periods in which the ownership of WaSCs was privatized, the productivity of the water industry increased due to technical improvements. On the other hand, the concession of WWS to private WaSCs involved a regression in productivity. From a policy perspective, regulators and managers of WaSCs at the international level can learn important lessons from the Chilean case to improve the productivity of the water industries in their countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the impacts of different land sale venues on the economic growth path, and hence Chinese local officials' incentive structure and their strategic balance between political promotion and rent creation. By investigating the panel data of 30 provinces and municipalities from 2000 to 2009, empirical results suggest that the proportion of land sale through public auction has positive effects on local GDP growth. The implication is that local officials who choose land sale venues may be judged on the basis of their impacts on local economic performance, because China's political promotion is largely GDP-based. However, descriptive statistics further reveal that local officials tend to sell commercial and residential land but not industrial land through public auction, indicating that local officials may have a strategic balance between their political promotion incentive and rent seeking incentive. In conclusion, it is the incentive of climbing further up the career ladder that drives local officials to give up some of, if not all, their rent seeking incentive in urban land transactions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Using data of Chilean exporting firms, this paper studies the effect of the financial crisis on the extensive and intensive margin of export in the aftermath of the crisis. The negative effect of the crisis on exports is highly heterogeneous. The evidence shows that larger exporters, belonging to industries more dependent on overall credit, have suffered disproportionately more during the crisis in terms of export growth, but less in terms of entry and exit. This has important policy implications, as public policy aiming at stimulating trade credit may not be as effective if overarching credit conditions remain subdued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]