Comparative Policy and Performance in Mesa-Lago’s--Market, Socialist and Mixed Economies: Chile, Cuba and Costa Rica.

would like to thank J. Perez- Lopez for his comments on an earlier version. 2In the last part of his recent book, Mesa-Lago provides a systematic comparison of the policies followed by Chile, Cuba and Costa Rica (Chapter 1) and of the results thereby obtained over the relevant periods for each country (Chapter 2). This is accomplished, of course, by building on the information developed in the previous three parts of the book which address the policies pursued and the results obtained for each country individually. Since others will discuss the individual parts, I will focus exclusively on the comparative issues. It is quite difficult to perform a systematic comparison of policies and outcomes across the three very different ‘models ’ of development represented by these countries. To start with the word ‘model’ is deceiving in that, at least in economics, it normally implies a far more logically coherent and consistent framework that can be associated with any of these ‘models ’ as practiced by these three countries, or any other ones for that matter. Out of this actual messy reality it is then necessary to extract some common measuring rods for comparing both policies and outcomes. Since policies are difficult to quantify and must be described qualitatively while outcomes are easier to quantify, one would think that comparing policies is harder than comparing outcomes. This is true, but it has a redeemin