Dollarization and Monetary Sovereignty: The Case of Argentina

By almost any objective measure, Argentina surely stands as one of the outstanding economic success stories of the past decade. Throughout the 1980s, inflation plagued the Argentine economy. By the end of that decade, pricelevel growth reached hyperinflationary rates: In June 1989, the Consumer Price Index was 1,471 percent above the previous year’s level. By March 1990, the index had advanced 20,266 percent over the prior 12 months. By the end of that year, real gross domestic product per capita was 23 percent below its 1980 level, reflecting the wastefulness of prolonged and extreme inflation.