A high and sustained economic growth and major social developments were the most distinctive characteristics of the Chilean economy in the 90s; noteworthy was the reduction of poverty. The governments of the coalition of parties of the Democratic Concertation, since 1990, supplemented growth-oriented economic policy with targeted social policies and investment in human capital. Although growth abruptly slowed down at the end of the decade due to external factors, during the first four years of 2000, and based on the macroeconomic fundamentals that created the sustained growth of the nineties, a period of economic recovery can bee seen.
