Mini-Case “Argentina’s Bold Currency Experiment and Its Demise”
Argentina, once the world’s seventh-largest economy, has long been considered one of Latin America’s worst basket cases. Starting with Juan Peron, who was first elected president in 1946, and for decades after, profligate government spending financed by a compliant central bank that printed money to cover the chronic budget deficits had triggered a vicious cycle of inflation and devaluation. High taxes and excessive controls compounded Argentina’s woes and led to an overregulated, arthritic economy. However, in 1991, after the country had suffered nearly 50 years of economic mismanagement, President Carlos Menem and his fourth Minister of Economy, Domingo Cavallo, launched
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Initially, the growth in government spending was funded by privatization proceeds. When privatization proceeds ran out, the government turned to tax increases and heavy borrowing. The result was massive fiscal deficits, a rising debt burden, high unemployment, economic stagnation, capital flights, and a restive population.
On June 14, 2001, Domingo Cavallo, the treasury secretary for a new Argentine president, announced a dramatic change in policy to stimulate Argentina’s slumping economy, then in its fourth year of recession. Henceforth, the peso exchange rate for exporters and importers would be an average of a dollar and a euro, that is, With the euro then trading at about $0.85, exporters would now receive around 8% more pesos for the dollars they exchanged and importers would have to pay around 8% more for the dollars they bought. Financial markets panicked, fearing that this change was but a prelude to abandonment of the currency board. In response, Mr. Cavallo said that his new policy just amounted to a subsidy for exporters and a surcharge on imports and not an attempt to devalue the peso.
Over the next six months, Argentina’s bold currency experiment unraveled amid political and economic chaos brought about by the failure of Argentine politicians to rein in spending and to reform the country’s labor laws. During the two-week period ending January 1, 2002, Argentina had five different presidents and suspended payments on its $132
Prior to the Great Depression, Chile had prospered amidst the workings of free-market and mercantilist polices. The Great Depression, however, disrupted this, as it brought about the necessity of government intervention in the economy. Indeed, government intervention even stretched so far as to transform Chile into a nation insulated by protectionist policies. Furthermore, the Great Depression had undoubtedly brought about a political crisis in Chile with the ousting of Ibáñez del Campo in 1931, who himself had partaken in a military coup d’état to achieve presidency in the first place. It has even been posited that the nationalization of copper that had begun during the presidency of Ibáñez del Campo and which was completed during the presidency of Salvador Allende in the early 1970s built the foundation for a future international economic boycott, which further
Peron transformed Argentina’s economy, social structure and political culture in ways that continue to shape Argentina to this day. On the other side, Peron’s political actions as well as his legacy cannot be characterized easily, he was a politician who provided for the masses as well as being supported by them while still being in various ways the president of an authoritarian regime. What were both Peron and Castro’s economic goals, and how do they differ from each other?
In addition, the Argentine economy will collapse every eight or nine years, Jorge was going to retire and none of his sons would like to take over his business. Jorge did not want to undergo major changes but just maintain the current situation due to the all these elements. However, many factors shows that Jorge has opportunities to expand his business globally. What he should do becomes a problem that he has to figure out.
According to this approach, in order to get IMF loans, any assisted country should go through reforms focused on the three major pillars of fiscal austerity, privatization and liberalization (Stiglitz, 2002, p. 53). During all the 90s, Argentina's economic policies were under the strict control of a supporting program established by IMF (IEO of IMF, 2003), so during the deep crisis happened between 1998 and 2002, IMF was already in charge with its approach. Throughout all this period, Argentina strictly applied the IMF formula and realized a number of structural reforms, "reducing budget and balance of payment deficits, raising interest rates, reducing inflation, privatizing state assets, and reducing trade barriers and regulation on capital flows in and out of the country" (Paddock, 2002, p. 158). This program did not produce the results expected by IMF. Instead, it produced recession and a strong dependence of Argentina's government on IMF loans to support its growing debt (Paddock, 2002). Primary economic and social indicators clearly show the sufferings of Argentina during that period: between 1998 and 2002, GDP passed from 292 billion dollars to 97 billion dollars (The World Bank, 2017), while unemployment grew from to 12.8% to 19.6% (The World Bank, 2017). Argentina stepped out of the crisis only after defaulting and devaluating, i.e. after
Within 3 years, the GNP dropped by almost 50% from $104 billion to 459 billion. Since we had a weak banking system, more than 5,500 banks closed down and people lost all their money that was inside, with no guarantee of ever getting anything back. Farm prices decreased by 60% of what it’s normally worth and the only thing that seemed to increase was unemployment rates, from 3% to 25%.
The reforms caused a period of success followed by worse conditions. These policies made the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Towards the end of the 1990s the country experienced rising unemployment and decreasing wages. The privatization of industries in addition to the international debt and government corruption led to many citizens distrusting the government and failure to pay taxes thus keeping the problems still at large. Unfortunately, the fragile Argentine economic infrastructure, while seemingly strong, was not able to withstand the downturn in the world economy after the severe correction of the both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ stock markets in the United States in March 2000 and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The widespread economic failure caused the Argentine peso to become devalued and this caused extreme inflation in prices. In June of 2002 the peso was valued at just $0.26 of a U.S. dollar. The unemployment rates skyrocketed as well hitting over 25% in most parts of the country and the poverty rate increased from 30% in 1999 to over 50% in 2002. The benefits of globalization in Argentina were short-lived but still vital in the countries development.
The financial crisis in Argentina during the late 1990s and early 2000s resulted in severe issues with foreign debt, inflation, unemployment, and political turmoil for the country. Argentina not only suffered a currency crisis, but also suffered a political crisis. Fallout from the economic collapse was so severe the Argentinean population resorted to civil unrest and protest, which in turn exacerbated Argentina’s problems at the turn of the century. While other issues related to this financial crisis such as the impact on the lives of the Argentinean population or the political turmoil and corruption are certainly worthy of discussion, this paper will focus on the currency crisis and the Argentinean government’s role in this economic
Sin embargo, a raíz de la crisis económica que sufrió Argentina a finales del 2001. Pecom vio reducidas sus posibilidades de seguir creciendo con la misma dimensión en la que venía operando.
This led the financial system to became worthless and millions of citizens to become poor. In Chile, Pinochet “imposed an economic system that seemed successful at the beginning, although it benefited the capitalists while it maintained the labour force under an iron fist” (Doc 8). In other words, the economy that Pinochet, the non-Communist leader that the U.S. supported, implemented created a huge gap between the very rich owners and the very poor workers. However, under normal circumstances Chile would have been able to create an independent economy that didn’t cause such a division between the upper and lower classes.
Juan Navarro, the former Chairman of Citigroup Capital Investors S.A. (CCI) in Buenos Aires, founded the Exxel Group in 1991. Due to his family’s influential background in Uruguayan and Argentine political and financial establishments, as well as his own work with the CCI, Navarro was well connected and highly experienced in the financial and political sectors, and in private equity itself. The political situation in Latin America at the time was fairly unstable and the launching of the modern Argentine economic policy in 1991 saw
My passion for social justice and accountably led me to pursue a career that involves law and public policy. I seek to learn how to analyze social problems and contribute meaningful solutions. As a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, I have begun working on this skill and would like to build on it and one day apply it in the real world. One of my current research projects as an undergraduate student at the University of Washington concerns the United States economic policies towards Argentina during the Dirty War and their impact on Latin America today. I want to know why certain policies were put in place and what those in power hoped to get out of the new laws.
Throughout 1994, Mexico lost significant amounts of reserves trying to stabilise the exchange rate. In 1989 the current account deficit was US$6 billion; by 1991 it had grown to US$15billion, before swelling to approximately US$20billion 1992 and 1993. However, after losing US$1.5billion in reserves over three days in early December 1994, the Government decided to depreciate the Peso by approximately 15%. Within days the Peso plummeted in value as the Government abandoned its new peg, sending the country into the 1994 Mexico financial crisis (Joseph & Whitt 1996).
During 1999 and the first years of the new millennium, Ecuador experienced its worst economic downturn since the depression era of the 1930s. Ecuador ’s GDP fell by 30% in 1999 alone, and per capita income fell by 30% as we ll, leaving over 70% of Ecuador ’s 12.4 million people living in poverty. This recession caused a monetary crisis which saw the value of the sucre, Ecuador ’s currency, fall by 70% in 1999 and 2000. In order to stop the free fall of the sucre, and curb the attendant rampant inflation, the government was forced to dollarize their currency, or peg it to the American dollar. All of this economic instability led to the first military coup in Latin America in ten years, as President
The Mexican Peso Crisis can be traced to the decision of then president Zedillo’s decision to reverse the government’s then policy that imposes tight controls on the Mexican Peso. This decision is considered by critics as an important factor that led to the Mexican Peso Crisis
With the large capital surplus largely arising from foreign investments to support the huge trade deficits in the Mexican current account, all seemed to go well for the Mexican economy until several political crises erupted and several macroeconomics mistakes were left exposed in 1994 which affected foreign investor’s confidence.