Talk:Hyperinflation

Article 90% based on minority definition of hyperinflation being 50% monthly inflation
All examples in the body of this article (making up the far greater part of this article) are 100% based on the minority definition that hyperinflation only starts at 50% monthly inflation. That amounts to 13 000% annual inflation. No country in the world has followed this definition since 1989. No country will ever follow this definition.

283 countries follow the definition that hyperinflation is 100% cumulative inflation over three years or 26% annual inflation for three years in a row (less than 2% monthly inflation for 3 years) as defined by the international accounting standard setters in 1989.

The neutrality of this article is thus clearly in great doubt.SungSamApple (talk) 09:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that most of the country examples based on the minority, outdated 50% monthly inflation definition be removed and the one that remains clearly be labelled as based on the minority, outdated definition.SungSamApple (talk) 12:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Far, far too many examples
The Hyperinflationary episodes section is painfully long. Many of the entries are not very well written and somewhat repetitive, often beginning with something like "Country X went through its worst inflation..." which implies that the example is not itself just very noteworthy. Hyperinflations are hardly rare in misgoverned countries with poorly-managed currencies, or in war zones where the economic base backing the currency is lost or destroyed, and it's surely not necessary to document every currency collapse since the late-1700s. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 19:50, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you. The reason why it is so repetitive is because this whole article is based on Cagan´s definition, while the generally accepted definition of hyperinflation is the IASB´s definition. People who promote Cagan´s definition abuse Wikipedia´s rules to promote the minority view here. It is very, very difficult to change this article to show an encyclopedic view of hyperinflation in the world today because the people who promote Cagan´s outdated definition are very strong on this article. They care nothing about the facts or correct encyclopedic representation of this matter. 195.23.41.216 (talk) 12:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, the number of examples is good. I would leave it as is. At most I would ad Venezuela as a recent example.

NeoStalinist (talk) 01:37, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

The majority of economists do not follow Cagan´s 1956 definition of hyperinflation being 50% inflation per month for 12 months.
I propose to remove the following sentence from the Definition sub-paragraph in the article: "Economists usually follow Cagan’s description that hyperinflation occurs when the monthly inflation rate exceeds 50%." or replace it with: A handful of economists still follow Cagan´s descpription that hyperinflation occurs when the monthly inflation rate exceeds 50%.

The generally accepted definition regarding hyperinflation is the IASB´s definition, namely, 100% cumulative inflation over three years. It is the definition followed by all accountants worldwide and by the far greater majority of economists. Only a small handful of economists follow Cagan´s definition. No government follows Cagan´s definition: thus, it is a fact that no macroeconomist advising any government follows Cagan´s definition.

It is completely misleading to present Cagan´s definition as the generally accepted definition of hyperinflation by economists in general. That is a completely false suggestion. 195.23.41.216 (talk) 12:47, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

No-one disagrees with my intention to remove the said sentence. I will thus proceed to remove it.195.23.41.216 (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Your claims are not based on reliable sources. We cite a third-party source supporting the prevalence of Cagan's definition; there's no source for the prevalence of the IASB's definition (which in fact is not a definition at all but a set of indications). The "no government follows" claim is firstly the hallmark of a well-known and oft-blocked sockpuppeteer and secondly both irrelevant and unreferenced. Huon (talk) 23:44, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * PriceWaterhouseCoopers state that accountants in 283 countries implement IFRS as of June 2014. Here is the reference: http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/issues/ifrs-reporting/publications/assets/pwc-ifrs-by-country-2014.pdf

That means that all accountants in the world implement the IASB's definition, namely 100% cumulative inflation over three years.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers is a very reliable source. The PWC source is thus a very reliable source of the prevalence of the IASB's definition. The fact that all governments follow the IASB´s definition is thus now reliably referenced as well as relevant. I maintain my position that I can thus remove the said sentence as a reliable source has now been found that all accountants and all governments in the world follow the IASB´s definition. That is overwhelming proof that the IASB´s definition is the prevalent defintion. 195.23.41.216 (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

When you have PWC stating, in essence, that all accountants in the world and all governments in the world follow the IASB's definition, then there is not much you can do about it, can you? 195.23.41.216 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I can, for example, read your own reference which speaks of not a "definition" but a "test" (p. 59) and nowhere states that "all accountants in the world and all governments in the world" follow your supposed definition of hyperinflation. Furthermore, hyperinflation primarily is a topic within macroeconomics, not accounting, making accountants' tests irrelevant compared to economists' definitions. Note also that your headline for this very section claims that "The majority of economists do not follow Cagan´s 1956 definition" - a claim that's patently false and not even remotely supported by the reference you gave. Huon (talk) 18:17, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

User 195.23.41.216 is a Monte DaCunca/Penny Seven sockpuppet, right? Prof. Mc (talk) 17:38, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Related to this, I just removed the following sentence from the article:
 * No government in the world follows Cagan´s definition since 1989 when the IASB published its definition. 
 * I removed it because there is no source cited for the statement. As noted above, we have a source for economists using Cagan's definition. I don't think we discuss governments using it, though—again, we'd need a source for the claim. Also, since the statement implies an IASB publication is the cause of the change, that statement definitely requires a source: it implies that the United States changed its definition based on the IASB, and as a rule, the US doesn't follow IASB pronouncements (remember, US GAAP derives from the FASB, which has not harmonized its rules with IFRS.) —C.Fred (talk) 21:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with C.Fred - but the discussion should be more extended. Fox1942 (talk) 11:42, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

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United States
I completely removed this section in examples of hyper-inflation. The US was not a market economy until some point after the Civil War. So hyperinflation citations of pre-market economy US are a joke. Sometime Wikipedia is beyond stupid, to the point where the only word that applies is idiotic. I have no choice but to assume this is typical Wiki agenda driven BS. It becomes tiresome of course. I could not login, so made the change as un-logged in user. 10stone5 (talk) 18:48, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * "During the Revolutionary War, when the Continental Congress authorized the printing of paper currency called continental currency, the monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 47 percent in November 1779 (Bernholz 2003: 48). These notes depreciated rapidly, giving rise to the expression "not worth a continental."
 * One cause of the inflation was counterfeiting by the British, who ran a press on HMS Phoenix, moored in New York Harbour. The counterfeits were advertised and sold almost for the price of the paper they were printed on.
 * A second close encounter occurred during the U.S. Civil War, between January 1861 and April 1865, the Lerner Commodity Price Index of leading cities in the eastern Confederacy states increased from 100 to over 9,000. As the Civil War dragged on, the Confederate dollar had less and less value, until it was almost worthless by the last few months of the war. Similarly, the Union government inflated its greenbacks, with the monthly rate peaking at 40 percent in March 1864 (Bernholz 2003: 107). ref name="cato.org" http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n2/cj29n2-8.pdf /ref "


 * Just a note that the logs for this page show that an anonymous user edited the page, and then the signature was changed to 10stone5. An examination of that user's Contribution history shows no edits to this page, and the types of pages that user edits are not related to this subject. Given the history of sockpuppetry on this page, I went to revert the edits on the main page, but they'd already been done. I have posted a query to 10stone5's talk page. Prof. Mc (talk) 19:06, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

US follows IAS 29 rules for hyperinflation definition as set forth by the SEC
"hyperinflationary operations be restated for the effects of changing prices using a methodology permitted by International Accounting Standard No. 29, "Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies" ("IAS 29"), and then translated to the reporting currency."

https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/fissuer.txt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.115.121.112 (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I have stated this reference in the article but another user simply removed the above reference from the article with no explanation. I think it must be against Wikipedia rules to remove referenced statements. 89.115.121.112 (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's not it's definition I can find in the SEC rule, though. Here's the definition that is there: "a hyperinflationary environment is one that has cumulative inflation of approximately 100% or more over the most recent three year period." —C.Fred (talk) 23:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The SEC rule as formulated in https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/fissuer.txt states "hyperinflationary operations be restated for the effects of changing prices using a methodology permitted by International Accounting Standard No. 29, "Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies" ("IAS 29"), and then translated to the reporting currency."

Countries implementing IFRS follow the IASB rule which is "The cumulative inflation rate over three years approaches, or exceeds, 100%" as stated in IAS 29 and quoted in the article while you stated in the article "The Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States uses a three-year cumulative inflation rate that approaches or exceeds 100% as its definition of hyperinflation." 89.115.121.112 (talk) 05:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Your statement can be changed to: "The Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States and the IASB use a three-year cumulative inflation rate that approaches or exceeds 100% as its definition of hyperinflation." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.115.121.112 (talk) 06:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that the above was written by long term abuser and sockpuppeteer User:PennySeven. PennySeven is a [user who has abused IP addresses from Portugal in the past] who has edit warred about inflation and hyperinflation. All similar edits should be summarily reverted. LK (talk) 10:48, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note. I hate refactoring other users' comments, but I have done so to the immediate above comment due to Wikipedia policy. —C.Fred (talk) 19:59, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Here we go again . . . Prof. Mc (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Apparently he has a book or something that he wants to sell. LK (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Welcome back, PennySeven, MonteDaCunca, etc etc etc. Prof. Mc (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

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Serious Omissions
As an economist who has worked in countries with very high inflation, I am interested in the problems that arise from inflation,how to run a food sector, how to run a business or farm, how to feed the people, in fact the problems that the people of the country face. I am not terribly interested in the cause of the inflation, as I cannot do anything about it. I am also interested in the effects of stopping the inflation, such as the string of famines that followed IMF World Bank restructuring. As the page stands, all that matters is the effect on banknote printers!AidWorker (talk) 10:22, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Politcal Effects
Are there also political effects that can be observed, certain voting behavior? Another important question is how hyperinflation provokes conflicts, civil wars or interstate wars. These effects would be import besides the economic ones. But I will be honest, I have not found good literature on this topic yet. Perhaps the author of this article could find something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.201.154.48 (talk) 17:28, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Addition of Venezuela
I recommend that Venezuela be added to the "High Inflation" section due to the events that have taken place over the past few years. Pi-or-tau (talk) 04:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Omission of Zaïre
No mention of Zaïre (now DR Congo) which underwent hyperinflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s... Ptilinopus (talk) 00:55, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Economists believe...
In the introductory remarks, the third paragraph begins "Economists believe...". This implies a near universal agreement among economists. In fact, the proposition that hyperinflation is caused by money creation is hotly contested. It is an article of faith among neoliberal economists who, admittedly, have a dominant grip on economic policy in the developed world at the moment, but it is disputed by proponents of Modern Money Theory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City whose critique of neoliberal economics is rapidly gaining influence. They contend that money creation is a result, not a cause of hyperinflation. I don't feel it is appropriate to get into that sort of discussion in the intro, and I'm not sure how to edit the intro to fix the problem, but I feel quite sure that this particular construction, which implies no controversy on the issue, is misleading at best. It would be better to put this sort of explanatory material in a separate section where the controversy could be properly discussed with proper citation of authorities espousing the different views. As it is, it smacks of propaganda and privileges a single school of thought, albeit the dominant school, which is likely wrong. Baon (talk) 06:20, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

The highest denomination of banknote ever issued
Actually, the highest denomination of banknote ever issued was the 1000 million b.-pengő. Ten times bigger then the 100 million b.-pengő, which is mentioned in the article. Zaxcaku (talk) 08:45, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

See http://artortenet.hu/index.php/item/113-hiperinflacio-5-resz-1946-julius-hiperinflacio-a-negyzeten-vilagcsucsot-dontunk Zaxcaku (talk) 08:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

"Money printer go brrr" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Money printer go brrr. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 30 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 00:59, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

money expansion
why isn't the greater supply of money backed by labor stop the inflation but raise the labor wages through a government system that takes over the employment so inflation doesn't have 2 accure and leave prices where they originally were and adjust prices accordingly not by greed because they know people have more money and than work on a strong global trade there's plenty 4 everyone therefore you create happiness and a luxury lifestyle world shall chip in there share of help whether its traveling 2 another country 2 help crop bigger farms using top of the line technology everywhere so forth so on Pidald (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:35, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Venezuela BsF Hyperinflation 2007-2017 notes.jpg

New empiric Data
A request to experienced users: please check new empirical data on Hyperinflation:

https://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/fileadmin/user_upload/dateien_abteilungen/abt_ewf/LS_Klump/documents/Personal_information/Dissertation_Ingo_Benjamin_Sauer_Summary.pdf

Short Summary: - Equation of exchange has been empirical refuted - Strong empirical correlation between central bank assets, Pressures on the currency markets and currency confidence — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A0A:A543:24EF:0:34BE:4DEE:4870:B84 (talk) 14:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC) <!--Autosigned by SineBot

The effect of inflation, including hyperinflation, can be absolutely and completely eliminated by means of updating all prices in terms of the daily CPI, the way all countries that issue sovereign debt value the debt they owe daily by means of updating it in terms of the daily CPI, which is the real price level in the economy.

It is impossible to leave a comment on this talk page.

So,I have to do this :

The effect of inflation as well as hyperinflation can be completely eliminated from an economy by means of updating all prices in terms of the daily CPI. No-one wants to know about this - because of vested interests - which is absolutely normal. That is normal, since we are human beings, and to err is human. Luckily, the theoretical basis of this hypothesis has been availabke on the internet for decades. So, that is good. Do not say you do not know what to do: the solution has bee available to you - free of charge - for decades.