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“Argentina’s Bold Currency Experiment and Its Demise”

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

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

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