On the campaign trail, Mauricio Macri vowed to fight inflation. Now, three years into his administration, it looks like that requires more commitment than he and his team of economic advisors envisioned. Argentina ended 2018 with an annual inflation rate of 47.6 percent. That is the highest rate since the early 1990s, when Argentina’s bout with hyperinflation came to an end. With this in mind, some (including John Cochrane, Steve Hanke, and Mary Anastasia O’Grady) have called for Argentina to abandon the peso in favor of the dollar.

Dollarization became a relevant policy option in Latin America beginning around 2000. Ecuador dollarized in January 2000. El Salvador dollarized in 2001. But Argentina, which had established a currency board in 1991, moved in the opposite direction following its 2001 crisis. On January 6, 2002, it broke its one-for-one peg with the dollar. The results have been disastrous.

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