Por Miguel A. Kiguel
Todos sabemos cómo funciona el cepo, y hemos aprendido a vivir con tasas de interés reales negativas, a usar el dólar Contado con Liqui para eludir los controles...
The Same Mistake Time After Time
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The Same Mistake Time After Time
Third week
May 2021
Argentina continues to stumble over the same stone. It is often said that no single instrument can be used to solve many problems. But sometimes just one policy error creates a lot of problems. The announcement of a 30-day beef export ban seems to go in that direction. If the aim is to lower inflation, it is very difficult to achieve it and if it does, it will be exclusively in the short term. It is true that beef price rose considerably more than inflation. The price of the steer in Liniers grew 101% in the last year. Minced beef in Greater Buenos Aires rose 63.85%, 17 points more than retail inflation. But what these types of measures do is reduce the supply in the medium term and therefore raise prices, with the secondary effect of reducing the export as well. The last time something similar was implemented, Argentina lost 10 million of heads, cattle went from 57 to 47 million. Even a moderate increase in the export tax rate would have been better than prohibiting.
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