Buenos Aires, February 2, 2026 – Total News Agency-TNA-Economist Marco Lavagna presented this Monday his resignation as director of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec), a departure that surprised the country's political and technical circles and comes at a key moment for Argentine public statistics. Since then, his management has been distinguished by the continuity of the official statistics normalization process, consolidating data transparency after years of questioning and what was called the 'statistical blackout' in previous administrations. This change—after years without significant modification of the basket—supposes a modification in the weighting of items such as Housing, Transport and Communications, and is the first time that a scheme with the National Household Expenditure Survey (ENGHo) 2017-2018 as a base has been adopted. Lavagna had been at the head of the body since December 2019, when he assumed that position during the government of Alberto Fernández. His resignation comes in the midst of a context of internal tensions in the Indec due to worker demands over frozen salaries and public questioning of some statistical measurements. Spokespersons consulted indicated that, although the update of the CPI seeks to improve the precision of the measurement, the abrupt departure of its maximum head generates uncertainty about the statistical direction of the body. The figure of Lavagna, an economist with a long technical career and family political ties—he is the son of former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna—had been valued by various sectors for his role in the consolidation of robust public statistics. Sources from the ATE Indec union expressed their surprise at the director's decision at such a delicate moment for official statistical work and demanded a 'real independence' for the body against political pressures. The moment chosen for the resignation, just days before the first inflation data under the new methodology is published, also revived the debate on the reliability of the main economic indicators in a country facing persistent inflationary pressures. Lavagna's resignation was confirmed by official sources from the body, who indicated that Lavagna communicated his decision internally and that it was accepted without further details about his immediate replacement. Lavagna's departure comes days after the implementation of a new methodology for measuring inflation through the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which began to be applied this month and incorporated an update of the basket of goods and services with the objective of more adequately reflecting the consumption patterns of Argentine households. However, his management was also the subject of criticism from opposition sectors that questioned adjustments and methodological corrections in data series such as the Monthly Estimate of Economic Activity (EMAE), which on occasions caused controversies about the evolution of real economic activity. Lavagna's resignation from Indec raises immediate questions about the leadership of the country's main statistical body, the strategy to sustain the credibility of the indicators, and the impact that the transition could have on the interpretation of key data such as inflation, economic activity, and the living conditions of the population. To date, it has not been officially disseminated who will assume the direction of Indec or if Lavagna's departure will imply changes in the methodological priorities of the body in the short term.
