Peru: July 1990 - August 1990

　　Prices doubled every: 13 days, 2 hours

　　Story: Peru had a long battle with inflation in the latter half of the 20th century. During the first half of the 1980s, Fernando Belaunde Terry was president, and Peru was faced with austerity policies imposed by IMF lenders following the Latin American financial crisis that began early in the decade.

　　Economist Thayer Watkins says the Belaunde Terry administration gave the appearance that it was complying with the reforms recommended by the IMF, when in reality, it was not. The economy was suffering stagflation at the time, and it was blamed on IMF austerity policies by the electorate, even though those policies weren't actually being followed.

　　This led to the election of Alan Garcia in 1985 as president. Garcia enacted populist economic reforms that only served to weaken the economy and shut Peru out of international credit markets. Faced with a lack of access to credit and deteriorating economic conditions, sustained high inflation became hyperinflation in Peru.

　　Daily inflation rate: 5 percent

　　France: May 1795 - November 1796

　　Prices doubled every: 15 days, 2 hours

　　Story: The French Revolution (1789-1799) came after a period in which France had run up substantial debts from fighting wars, including the war for U.S. independence from Great Britain.

　　One of the major economic policies of the French Revolution was the nationalization of land formerly owned by the Catholic Church. The Church was seen as an easy target for asset expropriation because they owned a lot of land yet had relatively little political influence in the new regime.

　　The government then issued assignats to the public – notes that essentially amounted to a land-backed currency – which were supposed to be redeemable for the land by note-holders at a future date. However, the government ended up issuing way too many notes in an attempt to close the deficit, devaluing the assignats and leading to runaway hyperinflation.

　　Daily inflation rate: 5 percent

　　Nicaragua: June 1986 - March 1991

　　Prices doubled every: 16 days, 10 hours

　　Story: In 1979, Nicaragua underwent a revolution that found the communist Sandinistas in power. This came against the backdrop of a global recession and a financial crisis across much of Latin America sparked by record high debt levels and the inability by nations to service those debts.

　　The Nicaraguan economy was ravaged by the revolution – GDP contracted by 34 percent cumulatively during 1978-1979. When the Sandinistas took power, they nationalized large parts of the economy, further contributing to the economic turmoil and hindering a robust recovery.

　　In the face of this, the Nicaraguan government turned to expansionary fiscal policy and foreign borrowing to stimulate domestic demand. This spending accelerated in the latter half of the decade to finance a war with the opposing Contras. While strong capital controls and a fixed exchange rate kept inflation at bay initially, 1985 economic reform moving away from such policies unleashed the suppressed inflation in the Nicaraguan economy.

　　Daily inflation rate: 4 percent