Matching cash and kind: Argentina’s experimentation with multiple currencies, 1995-2005

Abstract

Most economies nowadays operate on the basis of one currency per country, although that is a relative novelty in historical terms. Around the turn of the millennium, Argentina also had several currencies that coexisted at a national, regional and community level. This article explores the division of labour that emerged in Argentina at household level to match currencies and expenses, without the use of money changers, between 2000 and 2005. Households learnt to manage the currencies of their income with those of their payments, and to relate that to what was more necessary and accessible. Each type of currency served a specific purpose and all of them combined were required to pay for necessary transactions in the economy. Currencies were complementary to each other, in such a way that no single currency could manage on its own what the various types of currencies could do.