Gustavo Reyes, Maximiliano Gutiérrez, Marcelo Capello and Laura Caullo, four economists who work at Fundación Mediterránea, prepared a report to provide answers to various economic questions in our country. There they deal with issues such as: what is the magnitude of the economic adjustment that must be made in the country, as well as who is in charge of facing it. In principle, Reyes affirms that the Argentine economy currently does not need a major adjustment in its levels of aggregate spending, although it does require, and urgently, an improvement in the public sector accounts.

At the same time, Reyes explains that the imbalance in spending in an economy is measured by the Current Account deficit, which is estimated at a limited level for 2022, of the order of 0.3% of GDP. This shows, on the one hand, the scarce financing that our country has from the rest of the world. On the other hand, it implies that the expenditure imbalance has fallen sharply in recent years, from a current account deficit of almost 5% of GDP. And he wonders: What is the key so that a reduction in the deficit in public accounts does not generate a drop in total spending in the economy and a recession? The answer to this question is that the decrease in government spending must be offset by higher private sector spending, by more investment and consumption and less savings.

Read also: Dina Boluarte took office as president of Peru to replace the dismissed Pedro Castillo

Along the same lines, Maximiliano Gutierrez prepared a report regarding tax collection which reflects the slowdown in the level of activity in the fourth quarter. In it, he affirms that the seasonally adjusted index prepared by IERAL, based on the collection of taxes associated with the domestic market, shows a fall of 0.8% in real terms for November, after a decrease of 0.4% in October. . When extrapolating the behavior of the collection associated with the domestic market based on the trajectory of economic activity, making up for the lack of official information for October and November, it is found that the EMAE would have grown by 5.5% in the January-November period. compared to the 2021 average. To a large extent, this figure has to do with the strong “statistical drag” that 2021 left for 2022 (4.5 percentage points). Instead, the statistical drag from 2022 to 2023 would be only 0.2%.

Meanwhile, Marcelo Capello and Laura Caullo explain how in fourteen provinces more than half of the retirees and pensioners accessed the benefits of the national regime through moratoriums. There they affirm that in 9 of 24 provinces the relationship between retirees and pensioners and people of retirement age is greater than 100%, which denotes high coverage of older adults and/or a significant number of working-age pensioners.

In addition, they ensure that in Río Negro, Formosa, Santiago del Estero and Catamarca, for every person of retirement age, there are 1.2 retirees or pensioners. On the other hand, the ratio of retirees and pensioners over the number of people of retirement age in CABA, Jujuy, GBA Districts, Santa Fe and Salta, is between 80% and 90%, with CABA being the jurisdiction with the lower ratio.

Given the high labor informality existing in Argentina, a very significant percentage of people of retirement age or close to it do not meet all the requirements demanded by the legislation to access these benefits. In the case of SIPA, for example, the 30 years of contributions required by law are not reached in most cases. Given this situation, there is the possibility of accessing a retirement and/or pension due to a social security moratorium

Read the full report by clicking here