José Luis Espert


José Luis Espert is an Argentine economist and is one of the strongest supporters of the economic liberalism in Argentina.

Education and career

He was born in Pergamino to a Catalan-Argentine father and an Argentine mother. His father, who died in 2018, was a prominent businessman linked to the rural sector.
He studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires. He earned a Master's degree in economics at the University of CEMA, and a Master's in Statistics at the National University of Tucumán.
He started working at the Miguel Ángel Broda firm where he was a monetary policy analyst, later to become a chief economist at the same institution. He also worked as an econometrist at Estudio Arriazu firm and was a partner at Econométrica S.A. In 2000, he founded his own firm, Estudio Espert, which offers macroeconomic consultancy and Asset Management.
He is a member of the Argentine Association of Political Economy. He was Econometrics professor at UBA and Public Finances professor at UCEMA.
He is a columnist in different newspapers, such as La Nación and El País from Uruguay. In 2015, he was interviewed by José del Río at a La Nación program, which became the second-most viewed interview of the year.

Politics

He is very critical of the economic policies of the second presidency of Carlos Menem and the governments of Fernando de la Rúa, Eduardo Duhalde, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Fernández and Mauricio Macri.
In December 2018 he officially launched his presidential campaign for the 2019 Argentine general election.
Espert's proposals consist of lowering public spending, forming an agency similar to the US Drug Control Administration to combat drug trafficking, lowering taxes, decriminalizing personal marijuana use and reforming the education system through vouchers.
He opposes industrial promotion regimes and believes that the right to strike has gone too far, harmed even the worker himself. Therefore, he seeks a labor, tax and state reform in general. He also showed himself in favor of privatizing inefficient state companies and the retirement system, to turn it into an individual capitalization system such as in Chile.

Books