RE: Argentina

[Juan Jose Barrios <jota@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:27 PM 9/18/97 -0300, you wrote:
>
>
>----------
>Doug Henwood wrote:
>> Since we have a few Argentines on PKT, and some non-Argentine students of
>> the country, maybe someone knows the story behind the World Bank's
>> mysterious upgrading of Argentina's per capita GDP figures. In the 1987
>> World Development Report, Argentina's per capita GDP was given as $2,130,
>> just behind South Korea and just above Mexico. In 1992, Argentina's
>income
>> was $2,370, way behind Korea's $5,400 and about $100 below Mexico. In the
>> 1997 WDR, Argentina clocks in at $8,030, more than twice Mexico's $3,320,
>> and not that far behind Korea's $9,700. Does this make any sense to
>anyone?
>
>This is one of the mysteries of our country!! One is wondering how this can
>happen. There was a recent study about this, and due to the overvaluation
>of the peso, they tried to estimate the GDP per capita, and to our surprise
>it was lower than the official statististics, the GDP was adjusted by PPP.
>For example the 1997 GDP estimation is 315,327 millions of pesos and
>adjusted by PPP it's 200,796.9 millions of dollars!! (quite a difference,
>don't you think).

One has to be cautios with this PPP stuff specially in the short run and
specially when a country is going trhu such structural transformations.
There is huge evidence that PPP does not hold in the short run.

> In terms of GDP per capita: 9264 pesos versus 5900!!

Same thing

>Besides in 1980 there were National Accounts revisions "sponsored" by the
>World Bank, which led to higher GDP estimates. Although it is true that
>Argentina has experienced since 1991 a huge growth (the 80's are known as
>the lost decade), the GDP per cápita is not an accurate measure for the
>people welfare (the income inequality is deeper and it doesn't seem that we
>are having a turning point right now).

Do you have recent data about this last statement?

Juanjo