Undersecretaries were often recruited from ODEPLAN, the most pro-market reform institution within the government until the early 1980s. From early on, the planning ministry was accorded a high degree of autonomy within the administration. It thereby assumed the functions of a government laboratory or think tank in charge of researching and coordinating various reform projects in separate policy areas. The guiding force behind ODEPLAN was the gremialista and Chicago economist Miguel Kast. As subdirector (1975) and director (1978), he recruited like-minded economists and other professionals (agrarian engineers, for example) and thereby turned ODEPLAN into an ideologically cohesive think tank with a reliable network of experts who were closely linked to all the important institutions and agencies of the government.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1572