Hyperinflation: The Story of 9 Failed Currencies
The world’s major economic powers are all suffering from the economic downturn but even the most cynical doomsayer is sure we’ll get ourselves out of this mess—eventually. Rare are those instances in which entire economies are disrupted to the point – typically as a result of rampant inflation, or hyperinflation – that an entire form of currency is discarded, reformed or replaced. But it does happen.
There are invariably external issues (military, political, etc) at play, which result in what can generally be referred to the ‘failure of a currency’, and each situation is unique. The following is a list of nine notable examples in which currencies became so devalued that they were eventually replaced:
Germany Weimar Republic 1922-1923
Hungary 1945-1946
Chile 1971-1981
Argentina 1975-1992
Peru 1988-1991
Angola 1991 – 1999
Yugoslavia 1992-1995
Belarus 1994-2002
Zimbabwe 2000-2009
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