Argentina

Argentina's economic history is a case study in institutional path dependence: the country has defaulted on sovereign debt nine times, most recently in 2020, creating a credibility deficit that raises borrowing costs regardless of current fiscal performance. President Milei's radical libertarian programme — eliminating government ministries, devaluing the peso by over 50%, and attempting to dollarise the economy — represents an attempt to break the cycle through shock therapy. The peso-dollar relationship dominates economic life, with multiple exchange rates (official, blue market, financial) creating arbitrage opportunities that distort resource allocation. Annual inflation exceeded 200% in 2023 before Milei's measures, reflecting a monetary dysfunction rooted in the central bank's structural inability to resist fiscal pressure. The biological parallel is an organism trapped in a pathological feedback loop — each crisis triggers the same inflammatory response (money printing, capital controls, default) that worsens the next crisis.