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> this is not done out of a whim, but to preserve dollar reserves

This situation happens because the USD price is artificially low. Use the market price and you no longer have this issue.

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You mean also taking away all restrictions? I'm no expert but I imagine this would simply leave the middle class out of the loop and simply move all of the dollar buying/hiding in offshore accounts to the big players. I'm not sure Argentina as a country would benefit.

It's at a point now where the instability of the local currency is ingrained in a whole generation of Argentinians. Unwinding that psychology is not easy, regardless of monetary policy.

Every more "developed" country went through real hardship attempting to control their exchange rates, always there were strong short term reasons to keep the controls in place. But it's just not viable in the long run. Controls create an artificial situation where the politically well connected benefit. They gain personal access to favorable rates, or their businesses enjoy unfair protection through the manipulated rates.

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