University Press Scholarship Online

You are looking at 1-10 of 27 items for: keywords : hyperinflation

The World Economy between the World Wars Charles H. Feinstein, Peter Temin, and Gianni Toniolo

Published in print: 2008 Published Online: May Publisher: Oxford University Press 2008 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780195307559 eISBN: 9780199867929 acprof:oso/9780195307559.001.0001 Item type: book

This book surveys the main events in the international economy from the outbreak of the First World War to the end of the Second World War: a period of time variously defined as the “globalization backlash”, the “Second Thirty Years War”, or simply “the World in Depression”. The book starts with the unfortunate peace settlement after the First World War and progresses to the ensuing hyperinflations and financial crises; from the attempts at rebuilding an international economic and monetary order in the face of rapid technical progress and productivity growth to the policy mistakes that brought about the Great Depression — the most devastating economic depression in human history; from widespread long-term unemployment to overall autarky and a second global conflagration. The opening chapter puts the interwar years in the longterm quantitative perspective of economic development over the whole of the 20th century while the final chapter highlights the long-run impact of the interwar years on the growth and policy features of the prosperous decades that followed the end of the Second World War.

High Inflation, Growth Crisis, and Reform: Historical Perspective and Brief Overview Michael Bruno

in Crisis, Stabilization, and Economic Reform: Therapy by Consensus Published in print: 1993 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press September 2006 DOI: 10.1093/0198286635.003.0001 ISBN: 9780198286639 eISBN: 9780191603839 Item type: chapter

This chapter begins with a comparison of the recent inflationary experiences of heavily indebted and middle-income countries. It then discusses the historical antecedents of high inflation rates, chronic high inflation in recent history, the emergence of the ‘heterodox’ approach Page 1 of 6

to stabilization, and structural crisis and reform. An overview of the chapters included in this volume is presented.

Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany Bernd Widdig

Published in print: 2001 Published Online: Publisher: University of California Press March 2012 DOI: 10.1525/ ISBN: 9780520222908 eISBN: 9780520924703 california/9780520222908.001.0001 Item type: book

For many Germans the hyperinflation of 1922 to 1923 was one of their most decisive experiences of the twentieth century. This book investigates the effects of that inflation on German culture during the Weimar Republic. It argues that inflation, with its dynamics of massification, devaluation, and the rapid circulation of money, is an integral part of modern culture and intensifies and condenses the experience of modernity in a traumatic way.

The Ruhr Crisis 1923-1924 Conan Fischer

Published in print: 2003 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press January 2010 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780198208006 eISBN: 9780191716607 acprof:oso/9780198208006.001.0001 Item type: book

This book analyses the post-1919 collapse in Franco–German relations, which culminated in 1923 with a Franco–Belgian occupation of Germany's heavy-industrial heartland, the Ruhr District. Germany was in technical default of reparations deliveries including coal, coke, and timber and the French Premier, Poincaré, insisted that the occupation sought to secure these assets. German opinion, however, believed that beyond the reparations France was seeking to trigger the break-up of Germany, a belief recently vindicated by leading French historians. The people of the Ruhr rallied to defend their region and country in a grass-roots campaign of passive resistance against the occupying forces, with legal and financial support from Berlin. This book analyses the contours of this struggle which pitted mass civil disobedience against a heavily militarised occupation force. The Franco–Belgian authorities struggled to secure reparations deliveries and assert de facto sovereignty over the Ruhr and neighbouring Rhineland as railwaymen, coal miners, and public officials obstructed them at every turn. This triggered draconian sanctions against the region and sometimes the collective punishment of entire communities. This ‘Battle of the Ruhr’ involved the women and even children of the region as much as the male workforce. Famine, violence, and even sexual abuse came to characterise everyday life. Page 2 of 6

The costs of underwriting this struggle were ruinous for the German exchequer. Hyperinflation rendered the currency worthless, labour relations collapsed, and western Germany was swept by a wave of French-supported separatist risings. Only international mediation (the Dawes Plan) finally resolved the crisis and ushered in a period of Franco– German reconciliation.

The Legacy of Hyperinflation Barry Eichengreen

in Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 Published in print: 1996 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press November 2003 DOI: 10.1093/0195101138.003.0005 ISBN: 9780195101133 eISBN: 9780199869626 Item type: chapter

This chapter and the next describe the fiscal war of attrition that fueled inflation in the 1920s. That war proved most intractable in Germany, where it was fought internationally as well as on the domestic front. The German hyperinflation that resulted from this deadlock is the subject of Ch. 5. The different sections of the chapter look at the background (the post World War I reparations tangle), the transition to hyperinflation, the impact of inflation on the German economy, the stabilization that followed the revaluation of government reserves and pegging of the exchange rate in November 1923, and the implications for international monetary relations.

The End of Passive Resistance Conan Fischer

in The Ruhr Crisis 1923-1924 Published in print: 2003 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press January 2010 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780198208006 eISBN: 9780191716607 acprof:oso/9780198208006.003.0009 Item type: chapter

This chapter examines the failure of German diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ruhr Crisis during May and June 1923. Deficiencies in the German proposals combined with French intransigence to stymie the initiative, as well as British attempts at mediation. Thereafter, as humanly unbearable conditions undermined law and order in the Ruhr, the Prussian and German authorities were forced increasingly to the Allied will. Communist-inspired strikes and food riots became commonplace. Hyperinflation undermined any orderly payment of wages or salaries and simultaneously undermined most forms of retail commercial activity. Page 3 of 6

Women queued for hours in desperate attempts to secure scraps of food, while their menfolk shuffled to work barefoot and malnourished. Some industrialists began to contemplate collaboration.

Banking in Germany, 1918–1939 Gerd Hardach

in Banking, Currency, and Finance in Europe Between the Wars Published in print: 1995 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press November 2003 DOI: 10.1093/0198288034.003.0010 ISBN: 9780198288039 eISBN: 9780191596230 Item type: chapter

The focus of this chapter is not on the short‐term fluctuations experienced by the German banks during the inter‐war period, but on the structural change that ultimately resulted in the formation of a national banking system. The banking system of the early twentieth century was not a rational construct, but had evolved over the previous hundred years and consisted of a mixture of quite different financial intermediaries defined by a combination of legal provisions, ownership, economic philosophy, and business structure. Post‐war hyperinflation was followed by financial reconstruction, but the system collapsed in the banking crisis of 1931 and was reorganized under the Banking Law of 1934 as a monopolistic structure under strict government surveillance. The resulting system fitted the Nazi regime of armament and autarky, but was not an adequate model for the expanding world economy created after World War II.

Budgetary Policy, Money Supply, and Banking in Bulgaria Between the Wars Ljuben Berov

in Banking, Currency, and Finance in Europe Between the Wars Published in print: 1995 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press November 2003 DOI: 10.1093/0198288034.003.0015 ISBN: 9780198288039 eISBN: 9780191596230 Item type: chapter

The first stage in the financial history of Bulgaria after the First World War was a period of hyperinflation and currency depreciation, associated with large budget deficits and rapid expansion of the money supply. This continued until 1923, when the situation was brought under a degree of control by a coup d’etat and restrictions on public expenditure. The economic crisis of 1929–33 saw a sharp fall in prices and a further change in the general direction of policy from a broadly free market to Page 4 of 6

intensive state intervention. This included state controls on the prices of grain and some industrial products, the creation of state monopoly enterprises, and intervention in the exchange regime and in foreign trade. The inter‐war periods also saw the emergence of a central bank with responsibility for the note issue.

Constructive Data Mining: Modelling Argentine Broad Money Demand * Neil R. Ericsson and Steven B. Kamin

in The Methodology and Practice of Econometrics: A Festschrift in Honour of David F. Hendry Published in print: 2009 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press September 2009 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780199237197 eISBN: 9780191717314 acprof:oso/9780199237197.003.0017 Item type: chapter

This chapter assesses the empirical merits of PcGets and Autometrics — two recent algorithms for computer-automated model selection — using them to improve upon Kamin and Ericsson's (1993) model of Argentine broad money demand. The selected model is an economically sensible and statistically satisfactory error correction model, in which cointegration between money, inflation, the interest rate, and exchange rate depreciation depends on the inclusion of a ‘ratchet’ variable that captures irreversible effects of inflation. Short-run dynamics differ markedly from the long run. Algorithmically based model selection complements opportunities for the researcher to contribute value added in the empirical analysis.

Under the Sign of Zero: Money and Inflation Bernd Widdig

in Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany Published in print: 2001 Published Online: Publisher: University of California Press March 2012 DOI: 10.1525/ ISBN: 9780520222908 eISBN: 9780520924703 california/9780520222908.003.0004 Item type: chapter

This chapter investigates the ways the medium of money itself established a conceptual framework for the experience of the great German inflation. It examines how the hyperinflation damaged the basic functions of money and how the daily lives of people were affected by the increasing breakdown of the many functions of money. It suggests that the very image and sight of piles of paper money remain among the most striking features of the inflation of that time. It also discusses the Page 5 of 6

role of money as an ideological vessel within the antimodernist discourse of the 1920s.

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