The long and mostly failed history of price controls in Argentina

By Ignacio Portes

While debates about inflation might feel new in the developed world – to younger citizens at any rate –, that certainly isn’t the case in Argentina, where much of the discussion in politics, media, and academia over the last decade has revolved around what causes prices to rise.

For Vice President Cristina Kirchner and her supporters, the words of White House Press Secretary Jen Psak, who blamed recent hikes in the U.S. on “corporate greed,” were music to her ears. “Listen to her carefully. She is not Argentinian and much less a Peronist. She is the spokeswoman for the U.S....