Nicolás Dujovne (; born May 18, 1967) is an Argentine

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

and former Minister of the Treasury between 2017 and 2019 under the administration of

Mauricio Macri Mauricio Macri (; born 8 February 1959) is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previo ...

Early life and education

Nicolás Dujovne was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

on 18 May 1967. He is the son of the architect Berardo Dujovne. He graduated with a degree in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

from the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigi ...

Faculty of Economic Sciences and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

, as well as undertaking postgraduate studies at the

Universidad Torcuato Di Tella The Torcuato Di Tella University (''Universidad Torcuato Di Tella'', commonly referred to as UTDT or La Di Tella) is a non-profit private university founded in 1991. Located Buenos Aires, Argentina, it is focused primarily on social sciences. The ...

. He was a professor at the University of Buenos Aires.

Public management

He was Secretary of the National Treasury Department between 1997 and 1998 as chief of advisors to Pablo Guidotti, during the presidency of Carlos Menem. He was also appointed by the State to be the director of

Papel Prensa Papel Prensa S.A. is an Argentine manufacturing company, being the largest producer of newsprint in the country. The company furnishes 58% of the local market in the staple. The public–private partnership became the focus of one of a series of ...

S. A., a newsprint paper manufacturer, and represented the Ministry of Economy in the Central Bank of Argentina.

Private sector

In the private sector, from 2001 to 2011, he was the chief economist at Banco Galicia in

. He then worked in various consultancies until in 2014 he founded his own financial consulting firm specializing in macroeconomics, serving there as a director. He has also been a consultant to the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

in Buenos Aires and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He was a columnist in the daily newspaper

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Na ...

and co-hosted the program ''Odyssey Argentina'' on the television channel

Todo Noticias TN (formerly known as ''Todo Noticias'' (English: ''All News'') is an Argentine pay and streaming news television channel owned by the Clarín Group and its subsidiary, Artear. The channel began broadcasting on 1 June 1993, at 7:00 a.m. l ...

of the

Clarín Group Grupo Clarín S.A. is the largest media conglomerate in Argentina. Overview Established as such in 1999, it includes the '' Clarín'' newspaper (the most-widely circulated in Latin America), Papel Prensa (the nation's principal newsprint manufa ...

Politics

In 2010 he was economic advisor for the presidential campaign of

Ricardo Alfonsín Ricardo Luis Alfonsín (born 2 November 1951) is an Argentine lawyer, academic and politician prominent in the Radical Civic Union. His father, Raúl Alfonsín, was the President of Argentina from 1983 to 1989. Since 2019, he has been Argentina ...

, the son of President

Raúl Alfonsín Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after more than ...

. Close to

, Dujovne has been coordinator of the economic cabinet of his government, along with Mario Quintana, working in the technical teams of the ''Pensar Foundation'', and contributing during his presidential campaign on fiscal issues. Since 2012 he has also advised the block of the Radical Civic Union of the Senate of the Argentine Nation, forming part of the temporary plant. On December 26, 2016, after the dismissal of Alfonso Prat-Gay by President Macri, the splitting into two of the Ministry of Finance and Public Finance was announced, with Dujovne being appointed Minister of Finance from January 2017. Prior to assuming office, he resigned from the Senate and closed his consultancy.

Minister of the Treasury

Dujovne faced a deep fiscal adjustment promoted by Macri and deepened by the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

. In 2017, he faced the

tax reform Tax reform is the process of changing the way taxes are collected or managed by the government and is usually undertaken to improve tax administration or to provide economic or social benefits. Tax reform can include reducing the level of taxati ...

, which he managed to pass in

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

after some conflicts with industrial sectors due to internal tax increases or rebalancing of employer contributions. The fiscal pressure ended in 2019 almost two points less than in 2015. He signed a pact with the provinces to fiscally order their accounts and begin to lower the gross income and the stamp tax. Once the elections were won, a new index was launched to update inflation with the intention of lowering the deficit further. Its first year ended with a 2.9% increase in

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is oft ...

, after a 2016 dulled by high

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...

and the fall of the economy. That performance was key for the Macri government to win the midterm legislative elections and revalidate its power. After the

crisis A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...

that began in April 2018, the year that ended with

stagflation In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high or increasing, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actio ...

, everything changed. Dujovne looked for ways to restore confidence by taking fiscal balance as an anchor, but nothing worked until the arrival of the International Monetary Fund, an idea attributed to Luis Caputo. The reestablishment of withholdings in mid-July was a serious blow to the economic team, which maintained that the improvement in the fiscal balance should be due to a drop in spending (something that it eventually achieved) and not due to the rise in income (which it ended up promoting). He then sealed a 2019 Budget with the opposition. That budget impaired some improvements in the tax reform. Key to this leap was the strong link with Washington, particularly with Steven Mnuchin,

US Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

's man of confidence, with the IMF's technical teams and with the 2018 G20 Ministers of Economy (Dujovne acted as coordinator, when Argentina was the first host country). After the Stand-By Agreement, Caputo broke the rules that the IMF imposed to intervene in the

exchange market An exchange, bourse (), trading exchange or trading venue is an organized market where (especially) tradable securities, commodities, foreign exchange, futures, and options contracts are bought and sold. History 12th century: Brokers on the ...

and had to resign. The BCRA was left in the hands of Guido Sandleris, former deputy finance minister. It was a rise in power for Dujovne within Macri's economic team. After achieving a historic agreement (due to the significant disbursement), an expansion of it and an acceleration of disbursements, the Government did not manage to provoke sustainable tranquility in the financial and exchange markets, until April 2019, when the IMF finally freed its hands to the BCRA to intervene if the dollar soared. After his resignation in August 2019, he said that: "he contributed to the construction of a different country, modern, integrated into the world, plural and with the necessary macroeconomic balances for sustainable development"; and noted the achievements in reducing the

fiscal deficit The government budget balance, also alternatively referred to as general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the overall difference between government revenues and spending. A positive balance is called a ''g ...

and

public spending Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual o ...

and in reducing distorting taxes in the provinces.

Other activities

* Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016-2019) *

Inter-American Investment Corporation The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB or IADB) is an International financial institutions, international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States of America, and serving as the largest source of development finan ...

(IIC), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016-2019) *

(IMF), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016-2019) * Joint World Bank-IMF Development Committee, Member (2018) *

, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016-2019) *

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is an international financial institution which offers political risk insurance and credit enhancement guarantees. These guarantees help investors protect foreign direct investments against ...

(MIGA),

World Bank Group The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Gr ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016-2019)Board of Governors

(MIGA),

References

External links

Nicolás Dujovne: conductor de TN, columnista de La Nación y asesor de Cambiemos en la campaña
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dujovne, Nicolas 1967 births Living people Argentine Jews Jewish economists Argentine economists Argentine Ministers of Finance Argentine people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Jewish Argentine politicians