Don't lie to me Argentina

No me canso de decirlo, qué lindo es salir en publicaciones internacionales por estas cosas:

IMAGINE a world without statistics. Governments would fumble in the dark, investors would waste money and electorates would struggle to hold their political leaders to account. This is why The Economist publishes more than 1,000 figures each week, on matters such as output, prices and jobs, from a host of countries. We cannot be sure that all these figures are trustworthy. Statistical offices vary in their technical sophistication and ability to resist political pressure. China’s numbers, for example, can be dodgy; Greece underreported its deficit, with disastrous consequences. But on the whole government statisticians arrive at their figures in good faith.

There is one glaring exception. Since 2007 Argentina’s government has published inflation figures that almost nobody believes. [...]

[...] PriceStats is based in the United States, beyond the Argentine government’s reach. The oodles of online prices on which its index is based are tamper-proof. Argentina will no doubt say that it measures consumption by the rich rather than the poor, who may not shop online. But PriceStats’ methods are based on solid, peer-reviewed research and have proved an impressive match for (dependable) official figures in countries such as Brazil and Venezuela.

We hope that we can soon revert to an official consumer-price index for Argentina. That would require INDEC to be run by independent statisticians working unhindered. Until then, readers are better served by a credible unofficial figure than a bogus official one.