Economic Development Argentina Style

I try to cover economic development events worldwide, as most of you know. Here is an interesting update on Argentina, which was suffering not so long ago.

Argentina has a big opportunity to reverse its history of decline. But it will need to draw the right lessons from the past. Almost across the board, Argentina's economy is booming. The recovery gathered pace throughout last year: since September, GDP has expanded at an annual rate of 11%. And as the economy picked up, the government's authority seemed to revive in parallel.

What makes this remarkable is that only two years ago Argentina was in chaos. In 2001 it suffered its worst economic collapse in more than a century. In December of that year, after $20 billion had fled the country and bank deposits were frozen, an incongruous combination of unemployed rioters and pot-banging middle-class protesters caused Fernando de la Rúa, the Radical president, to resign.

Argentina is thus not a “developing country”. Uniquely, it achieved development and then lost it again. That's what makes the story so interesting. Could this be a pattern for many countries worldwide in the years ahead? Could this also be the case for local economies there, elsewhere, and even here in the US.

More here.