More than 100 economists including Thomas Piketty and Jayati Ghosh publish open letter ahead of country’s 19 November election
would probably inflict further economic “devastation” and social chaos on the South American country, a group of more than 100 leading economists has warned.
On the campaign trail, Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist – has brandished a chainsaw to symbolize his desire to slash subsidies and drastically reduce state expenditure on social programmes. He has also repeatedly claimed “taxes are theft” and called the “social justice” programmes they finance an “aberration”. “The state was invented by the devil, God’s system is the free market,” he has said.
Ghosh, a development economist from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said she and the letter’s other two co-authors, Piketty and Milanović, worried Milei’s policies “would be deeply damaging for Argentina and very unfortunate for the entire continent”. With less than a fortnight until one of the most important elections in Argentina’s recent history, the election looks too close to call.with 29.9% of votes to Massa’s 36.6%. Since then, however, the eccentric economist has been endorsed by two prominent conservatives:Juan Cruz Díaz, the managing director of the Buenos Aires-based consulting firm Cefeidas Group, said that as they entered the final straight the two candidates needed to spin the election in different directions.