Argentina Firing Inflation Expert Signaled Start of Dubious Data

The night before Graciela Bevacqua finished a report projecting the biggest monthly increase for Argentina’s consumer prices in more than four years, she told her three children she might quit her job as director of the inflation index.

The next day, the decision was made for her. Bevacqua’s boss at the national statistics institute told her on Jan. 29, 2007, that she had to step down because then-President Nestor Kirchner “wanted my head,” the 51-year-old mathematician said in an interview with Bloomberg News. A week later, Argentina reported prices for January 2007 had risen 1.1 percent from the previous month, compared with Bevacqua’s estimate of 1.9 percent.