Financial repertoires in the making: Understanding the US dollar's popularization in Argentina

Abstract

At the beginning of May 2018, after the FederalReserve Bank had announced an increase in thebenchmark interest rate, Argentina experienceda currency crisis that the central bank was unable to quell.As a result, the value of Argentina?s currency, the peso, fellnearly by 8 percent in one day against the US dollar, adevaluation noticeably higher than those experienced byother Latin American countries. For several days, in whathas become a regular event over thepast few decades, journalists eagerlydiscussed the peso dollar exchangerate, which also had a prominent placein the news. In one prime time current affairs program, a journalist observed that during the first week ofMay, 3 percent of Twitter exchanges inBuenos Aires had included the word dollar, a percentage equivalent to that of New York City