Abstract
The erratic development of inflation in Germany during the First World War into the hyperinflation of 1922–3 has served as a major test-bed of monetary theory ever since. This article charts contemporary and modern explanations of its genesis, stabilization and effects. Modern analysis focuses on the interaction between fiscal and accommodating monetary policy and the expectations of financial asset holders; it disagrees, as did contemporaries, over the degree of agency of the government in determining its own deficit. After an optimistic ‘Keynesian’ assessment of its effects in growth, more recent scholarship has relapsed into pessimism as to its effects on investment.
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Balderston, T. (2018). German Hyperinflation. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2064
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2064
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