The consensus of economists for Argentina beyond 2023 is unanimous: profound structural changes are needed to do so repeatedly coming out of the circle of crisis. Those who will come to the government in December of next year will not have time to think about whether to implement a shock or gradual policy, but rather it must work quickly to implement these reforms as soon as possible.
In any case, the political margin and social support to do this type of rearrangement the macro still appears too weak. This was stated by economists who attended the annual conference of the Foundation for Latin American Economic Research, FIEL, which was held in person on Wednesday at the Buenos Aires stock exchange.
In front of a varied audience of economists, officials of this government and its predecessors, and first-level businessmen, the variables that will have to be adjusted in the next two years to stabilize the economy were analyzed, in a context of strong inflationary acceleration. .
Daniel Artana, FIEL’s chief economist, said: what to do “Gradualism”, access to credit is necessarywhich would not happen in Argentina in 2023 or 2024. “If the government is unwilling to fiscal shock, inflation will fall very slowly. There is no magic. Then we have to clean up the big distortions in relative prices, the delay in tariffs and the delay in exchange rates, ”she warned.
In this sense, Artana assured: “If the reforms are not implemented, it is impossible for Argentina to reverse the decline to which we have become accustomed in seven decades ”. At the same time he put forward “If there is a stabilization program, we will have a first quarter of 2024 with high inflation and it is good for society to find out ».
For his part, Gustavo Cañonero, former vice president of the Central Bank and current director of CMF Asset Management, underlined that the current situation has a particularity: “A competitive change it does not attract investment and the increase in fiscal spending does not stop the increase in poverty“, She said.
“Without real financing, the expansionary fiscal policy doesn’t really work. It takes a regime change. To attract investment, Argentina must always be cheaper because we do not respect the right of ownership “, said the economist who warned that the main gap facing the country in an increasingly fragile macroeconomic context is the “lack of credibility”, but not the current government, but of the “country mark”.
At this point, he stressed: “Argentina must be cheaper and cheaper because we do not respect private property”. Moving on, Cañonero agrees with his colleagues: “We need reforms that will have to cover almost all areas of the economy. Argentina has never been able to reform; those who wanted to make an adjustment ended up attracting political outsiders. and that’s the big risk, ”the former Deutsche Bank said.
In this harsh diagnosis, the economist argued that whoever succeeds Fernández in the government has an advantage in implementing these reforms: “With inflation at 100% and rising, now everyone understands the benefits of the reforms. Before, they only understood costs “.
Meanwhile, Eduardo Levy Yeyati has anticipated that the next administration will have “a very short window to take action. Without funding, there is no time“For Levy Yeyati, the economic program to face 2024 must first focus on adjusting tariffs and the dollar, on achieving fiscal predictability and on presenting a financial and monetary program with orthodox strategies to aim at reducing inflationary inertia.
Although he presented a number of reforms that the economy should face, he warned that the discussion between “shock or gradualism is childish” and wondered if there is social support to address and support these reforms.
Finally, economists Juan Luis Bour and Santiago Urbiztondo analyzed how imbalances both on the labor market and on the energy front ended up impacting and completely unbalancing the macro. “You have to wake up to make relevant changes both on the union side and on the business side, ”said Bour.
Source: Clarin
