Vito Tanzi Sobre a Crise Grega: Grécia Não é Argentina

O grande economista Vito Tanzi mostra que um default grego não irá gerar uma recuperação rápida e sadia como a da Argentina:
In mid-2001, before Argentina defaulted, the spread on its bonds reached astronomical dimensions. Argentina did not have (as Greece still has today) other sources of loans obtainable at reasonable rates. After the IMF cut its financial support, because Argentina was not complying with its negotiated program with the Fund, the country could only borrow from the foreign market at extremely high rates. At that time, its public debt was only around 50 percent of GDP and its fiscal deficit (which, according to some observers, may have been underestimated) was only 2.5 percent of GDP. With those statistics it would have easily met the Maastricht criteria. Argentina’s constitution did not allow the printing of money, just as the government of Greece cannot print money to finance its deficit because of Eurozone constrictions. Argentina had already privatized all that it could to get public revenue. It was thus in a straitjacket.
By contrast in Greece, in 2011, the public debt is estimated to be around 165 percent of GDP, and a significant part of it is owed to its own banks. The general government fiscal deficit was 10.6 percent of GDP in 2010, having declined from 15.6 in 2009. If Greece stopped servicing all its debt, thus at the same time losing the cheap financial support that it has been getting from official sources (EU, IMF etc.), it would still have a large (primary) deficit that would need to be financed. The primary deficit is the deficit calculated excluding the payment of interest on the public debt. That primary deficit would likely grow after the default because the tax revenue would fall. The impact of the default on Greek banks and on Greek imports would almost guarantee that Greece would experience a sharp recession that would increase the primary deficit.