Journal of Economic Literature
Book Reviews
2026-08-28
Lant Pritchett of World Bank reviews “And the money kept rolling in (and out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the bankrupting of Argentina” by Paul Blustein,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Examines the bankrupting of Argentina between 1996 and 2001, revealing the role of the international community, including private market financiers and top international policymakers, in the Argentine debacle. Based on interviews with more than 125 people, including top officials of the IMF, U.S. government, other G-7 governments, and the Argentine government; people in the financial markets; and a smattering of other crisis participants and observers. Discusses Argentina's convertibility scheme fixing a one-to-one exchange rate for dollars and pesos and reasons for the IMF's skepticism about the approach; the IMF's negotiation of a “precautionary” program with Argentina in 1997, promising to provide emergency loans if needed, and a missed opportunity to exit from the convertibility plan while the market was bullish; how Enron-like pressures and conflicts of interest led private markets to overinvest in Argentina; negotiation of the first IMF-led rescue for Argentina in the year prior to the economy's collapse; the failure of other conventional remedies, including a voluntary debt swap and government spending cuts; a second IMF rescue loan to Argentina; the collapse of the Argentine economy after the withdrawal of an IMF mission in early December 2001, riots, and political regime change; and the termination of the peso-dollar… Index.”