La reforma agraria chilena: hechos estilizados a la luz de una nueva base de datos

This paper presents a series of stylized facts for the Chilean agrarian reform building on data from archival files of each plot involved in the process. The data includes the size and location of each plot, the time of the expropriations, the legal reasons invoked for the expropriation and the final result of the process. The paper also presents measures of the intensity of the reform at the municipality level and the correlation with agricultural production and the structure of ownership before the reform. While the results confirm some previous stylized facts of the reform process, we also provide new evidence that helps to understand the main characteristics of the process: there is a high heterogeneity in the size of expropriated plots as well as in the intensity of reform and the counter-reform process at the municipality level. Moreover, the data also suggest that the aspects related to land ownership were important motivations of the agrarian reform.