**1. Introduction**

City councils in Chile have taken on an increasingly prominent role in the political-economic and public-media spheres, especially after the emergence of the unexpected outbreak of the pandemic and the social unrest prior to Covid-19. The analysis of these institutions becomes relevant, as well as the need to establish interdisciplinary and econometric instruments, that can provide public policies with better data, in order to optimize the perspectives of local government efficiency in situations of high instability and global-local complexity.

In a country with a centralized administration system, the attributes of which intensified after the 1973 coup d'état and subsequent dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, municipalities have since become bureaucratic units that are fundamental in the life and control of the population, due to a range of responsibilities assigned to them in their communal territories.

With the arrival of democracy in 1990, a number of political and participative adjustments were implemented that impacted the municipalities. However, the challenges continued to multiply as social and cultural transformations were taking place in these territorial areas, all of a different nature and stretching across more than 4000 km on the mainland and islands of Chile.

Nevertheless, the Chilean political system maintains its marked presidentialism and has not been able to move forward towards a decisive decentralization. Highranking officials, such as regional and provincial governors, continue to be designated in accordance with criteria defined in the country's capital or by elite groups.

The OECD [1] points out that Chile has a long tradition of centralism, with an administration system associated with economic efficiency and political stability. However, there are discussions on the need to improve regional performance and competitiveness from a necessarily decentralizing role [2], capable of bringing the country, that received international recognition for its political and economic transition in the nineties, into line with the new challenges.

The objective of the following research is to select municipalities that are regional capitals with over 50,000 inhabitants, in order to determine the factors that influence the efficiency of these city councils in Chile, based on the quality of life index of the districts. To do so, an econometric model was developed to explain the specific factors of the efficiency of city councils in Chile, as well as the variables with the greatest impact on such efficiency.

We believe that this is a necessary yet seldom addressed dimension in Chile, in terms of the inputs that econometrics can provide, to move forward with better interdisciplinary perspectives in order to empower regional governments that promote human development in pursuit of sustainability and the best possible democratic and social conditions.
