Adolfo Diz - Life and Times

Life and Times

Diz was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. He was known as "Vasco" to his friends and family due to his Basque descent from his mother, María Elisa Aristizabal Iparraguirre Lazaga y Gogorza. He married the former Martha E. Solari and had five children: Agustín, Joaquin, Diego, Rodrigo and Ramiro.

Diz earned a bachelor in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires. He was then accepted at the University of Chicago, where he earned his master in 1957 and a PhD in Economics in 1966. A pupil of Milton Friedman, Diz was the precursor of the influential "Chicago Boys" in Latin America, where he cultivated relationships with other Chicago School graduates such as Ernesto Fontaine, Roque Fernández, Carlos Rodríguez, Fernando de Santibañes, and other well known Argentine economists trained by Arnold Harberger.

Between 1967 and 1968 he was an Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. He was appointed the Financial Representative for Argentina in Europe (in Geneva), serving until 1973, and in 1974 was named director of the Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), an institution that promotes a better understanding of monetary and banking matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the pertinent aspects of fiscal and exchange rate policies.