Associate Professor Philip Brock is a member of the University of Washington Department of Economics, where his fields of interest include development economics, financial economics, international finance, and macroeconomics. He earned a B.A. from Princeton University in 1976 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1982. His current research examines institution building in Chile during the mid-nineteenth century, a formative period in the country’s economic and financial development.
Professor Brock’s work focuses on the 1850s, when the Chilean government enacted modern Civil and Commercial Codes, established a National Mortgage Bank, and created a formal banking system. This institutional transformation was influenced in part by external economic forces, particularly the California Gold Rush. Between 1849 and 1855, tens of thousands of gold seekers traveling to San Francisco stopped in Valparaíso, increasing demand for Chilean exports such as wheat and flour and generating broad-based economic activity.
Professor Brock’s research documents how institutional developments from this period continue to influence Chile’s contemporary economic and financial systems. The national property registry established under the Chilean Civil Code of 1855 remains a legal requirement for property transactions today. BancoEstado, Chile’s third-largest and only public bank, traces its origins to the National Mortgage Bank founded in 1856. These institutional foundations illustrate the long-run role of financial and legal structures in shaping economic activity in Chile.
Professor Brock’s paper on the creation of Chile’s National Mortgage Bank is available here:
https://doi.org/10.53077/haal.v3i02.129