Locked in extraction: unveiling the path dependence of Chile’s neoextractivist economy in a global transition era

Abstract This article provides a multi-scalar analysis of Chile’s development trajectory, demonstrating that its historical dependency on resource extraction has evolved into a resilient and complex financialised extractivist lock-in from 1940 to 2022. Using Bai-Perron structural break analysis and regional Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we reveal how the national economy transitioned from a primary-export model to one where a dependent service sector reinforces the extractive core. This reconfiguration has produced a territorially polarised landscape of extraction and accumulation zones. We argue that this lock-in is perpetuated by a deep-seated rentier logic and modern governance mechanisms like public–private partnerships, which structurally limit diversification.