Prices Rise When the Government Prints Too Much Money

In Germany in January 1921, a daily newspaper cost 0.30 marks. Less than 2 years later, in November 1922, the same newspaper cost 70,000,000 marks. All other prices in the economic rose by similar amounts. This episode is one of history,s most spectacular examples of inflation, an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy.

Although the United States has never experienced even close to that in Germany in the 1920s, inflation has at times been an economic problem. During the 1970s, for instance, tree overall “level of prices more than doubled, and President Gerald Ford called inflation public enemy nunber one. By contrast, inflation in the 1990s was about 3 percent per year at this rate, it would take more than 20 years for prices to double. Because high inflation imposes various costs on, society, keeping inflation at a low level is goal of economic policymakers around the world.

What causes inflation? In almost all cases of large or persistent inflation, the culprit is growth in the quantity of money. When a government creates large quantities of the nation,s money, the value of the money falls. In Germany in the early 1920s, when prices were on average tripling every month, the quantity of money was also tripling every month. Although less dramatic, the economic history of the United States points to a similar conclusion. The high inflation of the 1970s was associated with repaid growth in the quantity of money, and the low inflation of the 1990s was associated with slow growth in the quantity of money.

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