A spiritual retreat for economists in the mountains to form a team

Two years before Mauricio Macri became president, in 2013 the Fundación Pensar, the think tank PRO, organized a spiritual retreat with economists in the high altitude vineyards of the Catena winery in Mendoza.

“Nicolás made an observation to me: the economy of Kirchnerism is more organized than ours, we must work to act in 2015”, began Federico Sturzenegger in front of an auditorium of economists and with the Cordillera in the background as a landscape.

Nicola Catena encouraged and funded those three days of debate between economists. “The idea is to organize ourselves to have an economic plan to give to Macri”, Sturzenegger continued enthusiastically.

Many of those present were not identified with Macri. At least not yet. Many others would not arrive later.

“In 2013, there was still no coherent economic theory about what had to be done, other than what Kirchnerism was doing,” Catena recalls today. “If you don’t have a conceptual model of what needs to be corrected and where you intend to go with these changes, the likelihood of failing along the way is greater.”

Catena studied economics at the universities of Cuyo and Columbia in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a junior economist and recently graduated from his doctorate in the United States when he had to be part of Celestino Rodrigo’s team. “A few weeks have passed when I did Economics – explains Catena-, it was the first discovery of the repression of prices in such a violent way”.

Francisco Cabrera, a friend of Catena and at the time in the Pensar Foundation -then he would become Minister of Production of Macri-, shaped that spiritual retreat.

First, it brought together the economists of the PRO. Among the “militants” were Sturzenegger, Rogelio Frigerio and Miguel Braun. Then the ‘academics’ of the time joined, such as Ernesto Shargorodsky, Eduardo Levi-Yeyati and Guido Sandleris (Universidad Di Tella); There were also former officials such as Martín Redrado, Daniel Marx and Hernán Lacunza; and consultants such as Nicolás Dujovne, Maximiliano Castillo and Daniel Artana (although they had also gone through public service at the time).

every expert he had five minutes to present a topic related to growth.

Sandleris and Redrado have staged a counterpoint of “experience”. Who would have been president of the Central Bank with Macri years later criticized the increase in the money supply during the Cristina government.

“Why was Garrincha getting drunk?” my son asked while we were looking at some soccer figures, “said Sandleris.” I don’t know exactly, “I replied,” but people who get drunk very often do it because they are sad or depressed, because it has become their addiction. ” I acted, recalling a few lessons from high school. “I thought you got drunk because you drank alcoholic beverages,” said my surprised son. increase in the money supplySandleris implied, it was what caused inflation to rise.

Redrado defended himself by saying this when it comes to economic policy there is political pressure and that what he had done was the best within the margin he had. Lacunza, a former bank manager during his tenure and sitting next to him, nodded as if she agreed with him. “You have to understand where Martín was sitting”, accompanied Sturzenegger in the same sense. “There are pressures.”

“History matters and those with experience have an advantage from my point of view”, says Catena again today several years later. “Bringing together economists like that time is a difficult but useful exercise. We need to have an Economy Minister and a team that works together on all variables and, when I say everything, I include our history ”.

Shortly thereafter, the Fundación Pensar intensified its meetings on the economy. Macri attended them once a month.

Jaime Durán Barba and Marcos Peña, who were advising the presidential candidate at the time, expressed objections. “What use did they ask us for?” recalls Cabrera. There was distrust from the political wing, focused on putting together the presidential candidacy of the PRO, on what policies or recommendations made by the economists. “Macri told me, don’t give them a ball, I followed you,” Cabrera once said.

Almost ten years passed and many members of that team passed through Mendoza turn today to prepare for 2023 not only in the PRO anymore. Also at the UCR. And more programmatically. The Pensar (Pro), Alem (UCR), Hannah Arendt (CC) and Federal Meeting foundations coordinate work with economists on a weekly and schematic basis. They will start next month outline more specific policies. Lacunza and Levy-Yeyati, present at that time in Mendoza, lead the tasks respectively on the side of Pensar and Alem. The exercise is almost the same as 40 years ago: discover a pot and do not fail in the attempt.