We evaluate the electric and magnetic polarizabilities of charged pion
s in the framework of chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading or
der. This requires a two-loop evaluation of the Compton amplitude near
threshold. In addition we discuss the amplitude and cross section of
pion-pair production for charged pions to two loops. The three new cou
pling constants that enter the result at this order in the low-energy
expansion are estimated via resonance saturation. The predictions are
compared with available experimental information.