Argentines Want the Real Inflation Numbers
Provinces and private researchers say government data are way off
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Mauricio Macri is a conservative politician campaigning for reelection as mayor of Buenos Aires. He’s making the usual promises—improving the schools, fighting crime, unsnarling traffic—and one that’s not so usual. Macri says that if, as expected, he wins the July 31 vote, he will launch the Argentine capital’s own consumer price index.
A growing body of officials say they cannot trust the inflation data provided by the left-tilting government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Doubts have been growing since January 2007, when Fernández’s husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, replaced the staff at the National Statistics Institute, known as Indec, in what he said was a bid to improve operations.