Cosmetic changes: the Argentine economy after the 2007 elections.

• Author: Williams, J. Edgar

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4944.

An Argentinean and a senior research associate at liberal think tanks in both Buenos Aires and Washington D.C., Alan Cibils has an intimate knowledge of his country's economy. Commenting on the changeover in Argentina from the presidency of Nestor Kirchner to that of his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK), who won a comfortable victory in the November elections, Cibils maintains that, although she campaigned for "change," she does not seem to want other than cosmetic changes. He credits her husband, Nestor, with using "heterodox" macroeconomic policies to achieve Argentina's recovery from the major economic crisis of 2001-2002. By this, he means policies at odds with those recommended by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Though he blames Nestor for keeping in place Argentina's old "neo-liberalism" and corruption, he also credits him with a respectable economic growth rate, attributable to such policies as an exchange rate permitted to float within limits, a sound monetary policy, and building a fiscal...