Lessons From Argentina’s Default

The New York Times

From Alan Cibils is the chair of the political economy department at the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires.

As an economist who lived through the Argentine crisis nearly a decade ago, I am distressed by the trouble in the euro zone because it has many of the same ingredients that led to the Argentine debacle.

Argentina’s Lessons for Greece

Raquel Fernández

(Raquel Fernández is Professor of Economics at New York University. )

Jonathan Portes

(Jonathan Portes is Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.)

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-lessons-from-argentina-by-raquel-fern-ndez-and-jonathan-portes-2015-02#1AQmWPCTlxsfb6aH.99

NEW YORK – Thirteen years ago, Argentina was in dire straits. Its peso was pegged to the dollar at a level that far exceeded its value. Its external debt was unsustainable. And political pressure from the United States prevented its weak government from renegotiating a bailout program that even the International Monetary Fund knew was unrealistic.