Statistician who defied Argentine government sees criminal charges dismissed

摘要

Graciela Bevacqua, the former head of Argentina's official consumer price index (CPI), has been cleared of charges relating to the establishment and operation of alternative price indices, according to local media reports. The government of Argentina accused Bevacqua and a colleague of seeking to distort prices with these alternative measures, however a judge dismissed the government's case this summer. Bevacqua began producing her own consumer price indices after she was ousted from her job at Argentina's national statistics office, INDEC, in 2007. In an interview with Significance in 2012 (bit.ly/1QFFMVn), she claimed she was forced out for refusing to bend to government pressure to alter the official measure of consumer prices. "[We were told] that the patriotic thing to do was to report a low CPI (or at least a CPI that was on a downward trend)," Bevacqua alleged.