Joaquín José Lavín Infante (born 23 October 1953) is a Chilean politician and economist, best known for serving as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and has served as the Ambassador of Chile to the United States since November 2011. As leader of the right-wing Gremialist Union, he became the first hard-right President since the return to democracy, as the previous center-right Presidents (Aylwin and Alessandri Besa) were considerably closer to the center. As President, Lavín advocated economic policies based off of his theories derived from what he had learned at the University of Chicago.