Ricardo Raineri

Ricardo Raineri
Ministry of Energy (Chile) 2010-2011
Taking office March 11, 2010
Succeeding	Marcelo Tokman Ramos
Personal details
Born	(1961-11-25) November 25, 1961 Santiago, Chile
Political party	Renovación Nacional
Alma mater	Pontifical Catholic University of Chile University of Minnesota
Occupation	Economist, Academic, Researcher, Consultant, Politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	RicardoRaineri

Ricardo Jorge Raineri Bernain (born November 25, 1961) is an economist, academic, researcher, consultant, and politician. On February 9, 2010, Chile's current President Sebastián Piñera nominated him to the Ministry of Energy.

Biography

Raineri completed his studies at the Adventist high school in Santiago, Chile. He went on to major in Business at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1987. He completed his Masters of Arts in 1991 and Ph.D. in 1993 at the University of Minnesota. His studies concentrated on industrial organization and regulation, and monetary economy.^[1] He is married and the father of three children.

Career

Upon his return to his country Chile, Raineri began to work as a professor and researcher of the Department of Industrial Engineering and of the School of Engineering Systems at his Alma mater, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He would later become the director of the department between April 1998 and April 2002. He was also managing director and coordinator of economics of the Industrial Engineering Department and Systems between March 1994 and October 1995.

He corroborated with Sebastián Piñera working as coordinator in the area of energy of the group Tantauco.^[2]

In 2012, he was appointed as alternate executive director of the World Bank Group, in representation of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

In 2012, he was elected by experts around the world, and for a period of two years, as vice president for academic affairs of the International Association for Energy Economics. In 2014 was re-elected to continue in that office for a second two-year term, 2015–16. In 2015 is elected as IAEE president elect for 2016 and as IAEE president for 2017.

Politics

On February 9, 2010, Chile's current President-elect Sebastián Piñera nominated him to the Ministry of Energy. Following the 2011 Magallanes protests in January he resigned after supporting a price increase for natural gas, resource whose price was heavily subsidized in a region where natural gas reserves were estimated to last a few years given the high levels of consumption and lack of investments on exploration and new production wells. His resignation allow the government to revert the price increase, what leads the way to an increasing energy shortage in the region.

References