World Hyperinflations

[MachineGhost]

This chapter supplies, for the first time, a table that contains all 56 episodes of hyperinflation, including several which had previously gone unreported. The Hyperinflation Table is compiled in a systematic and uniform way. Most importantly, it meets the replicability test. It utilizes clean and consistent inflation metrics, indicates the start and end dates of each episode, identifies the month of peak hyperinflation, and signifies the currency that was in circulation, as well as the method used to calculate inflation rates.

http://b.rw/PHFIEm

[Lone Wolf]

That's a really nice research paper.  Thanks for posting.  It's difficult to draw good statistics out of these very chaotic periods  but Cato seems to have done a nice job here.

They were also quite strict on their definition of "hyperinflation", restricting it to periods of >50% inflation per month!  There are much lower levels than that (any double digit monthly rate, for example) which would still feel like ruinous levels of inflation on the ground.

Can you even imagine the Hungarian experience where for nearly one year prices doubled every 15 hours.  The economic dislocations must have been out of this world.

[Ad Orientem]

Wow. That's an awesome find. Thanks for posting. I would note that Rienhart and Rogoff in their book "This Time Is Different" go with 40% monthly inflation rate as a definition for hyperinflation. Anyway you slice it those are just terrifying numbers. And to think people whined back in the 70's when annual inflation broke over 10%.

[MachineGhost]

Can you even imagine the Hungarian experience where for nearly one year prices doubled every 15 hours.  The economic dislocations must have been out of this world.

It does sort of give an inkling of what "inflation expectations" really mean.  Its like a fear bubble destroying everything in its path with no relation to actual reality.  Since fear is irrational, it was unlikely that it matched a quantifiable rate of inflation off the printing press.

Its also kind of interesting how too much or too little inflation causes a loss of confidence, but with different effects.