Swollen Permits? Call Chile!

About this episode

The episode discusses how permits can act as significant barriers to economic growth and investment, using Chile's bureaucratic challenges as a case study.

Send us Fan Mail Permits feel like “just paperwork”, until they quietly become the biggest barrier to building, investing, and even basic economic growth. We use Chile’s fight with “permisologia” to show how bureaucracy creates delay, uncertainty, and political risk even when the stated goal is safety or environmental protection. • permits as transaction costs that quietly tax projects and entrepreneurship • why bureaucracy is not the same thing as government and why it crowds out...

People in this episode

Host: Michael Munger

Topics covered

• bureaucracy
• economic growth
• transaction costs
• permits
• political risk

Keywords

• permits
• bureaucracy
• economic growth
• transaction costs
• Chile

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: permisologia

Places: Chile

More episodes of The Answer Is Transaction Costs

• Hereditary Monarchy: At Least You Know Which Idiot Is Next · June 9, 2026 · 31 min
• Honor Among Thieves: Anja Shortland and Ransomware · April 28, 2026 · 1h 7m
• Are Transaction Costs Really Just Human Distance · March 24, 2026 · 43 min
• Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 10: Always Contemporary · February 24, 2026 · 1h 28m
• Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 9: Spending, Taxing, and Debt · January 27, 2026 · 1h 29m
• Adam Smith Episode 8: A Nation of Shopkeepers · December 30, 2025 · 1h 25m