Domingo Cavallo

Domingo Cavallo
Cavallo in 2001
Minister of Economy
In office
20 March 2001 – 20 December 2001
PresidentFernando de la Rúa
Preceded byRicardo López Murphy
Succeeded byJorge Capitanich
In office
1 February 1991 – 6 August 1996
PresidentCarlos Menem
Preceded byAntonio Erman González
Succeeded byRoque Fernández
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
July 8, 1989 – January 31, 1991
PresidentCarlos Menem
Preceded bySusana Ruiz Cerruti
Succeeded byGuido di Tella
President of the Central Bank of Argentina
In office
July 2, 1982 – August 26, 1982
PresidentReynaldo Bignone
Preceded byEgidio Iannella
Succeeded byJulio González del Solar
National Deputy
In office
December 10, 1997 – March 20, 2001
ConstituencyCity of Buenos Aires
In office
December 10, 1987 – December 10, 1989
ConstituencyCordoba
Personal details
Born
Domingo Felipe Cavallo

(1946-07-21) July 21, 1946 (age 78)
San Francisco, Córdoba, Argentina
Political partyJusticialist Party (1983–1996)
Action for the Republic (1996–2005)
Is Possible Party [es] (2013)
SpouseSonia Abrazián
Alma materNational University of Córdoba
Harvard University
WebsiteOfficial website

Domingo Felipe Cavallo (born July 21, 1946) is an Argentine economist and politician. Between 1991 and 1996, he was the Minister of Economy during Carlos Menem's presidency. He is known for implementing the convertibility plan, which established a pseudo-currency board with the United States dollar and allowed the dollar to be used for legal contracts. This brought the inflation rate down from over 1,300% in 1990 to less than 20% in 1992 and nearly to zero during the rest of the 1990s.[1] He implemented pro-market reforms which included privatizations of state enterprises. Productivity per hour worked during his five-years as minister of Menem increased by more than 100%.[2] In 2001, he was the economy minister for nine months during the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression. During a bank run, he implemented a restriction on cash withdrawing, known as corralito. This was followed by the December 2001 riots in Argentina and the fall of Fernando de la Rúa as president.[3]

Cavallo is a Doctor in Economic Sciences from the National University of Córdoba and obtained his PhD in Economics from Harvard University. He received five Honoris Causa doctorates from Genoa, Turin, Bologna, Ben-Gurion and Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne universities. He was professor at the National and Catholic Universities of Córdoba, and at New York, Harvard, and Yale universities.[4]

  1. ^ Graciela Kaminsky; Amine Mati; Nada Choueiri (November 2009). "Thirty Years of Currency Crises in Argentina External Shocks or Domestic Fragility?" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference productivity1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Argentina's collapse - A decline without parallel". The Economist. February 28, 2002.
  4. ^ "Domingo Cavallo: biography". Encyclopædia Britannica.