Topic
Inflation
Why prices rise, what happens when they run out of control, and how inflation has been brought down before.
Start here
The Nixon Shock of 1971Learn why Nixon ended the dollar's link to gold in 1971, and what else his package did.Read it From The Great Inflation — 1971 to 1982
The history
What happened, step by step, with every figure checked against a named source.
- SeriesThe Great Inflation — 1971 to 1982Learn why inflation ran high across the rich world in the 1970s, what the oil shocks had to do with it, and how it was brought down.
- SeriesHyperinflationLearn what hyperinflation is, what causes it, what it does to people, and how it is stopped, through Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
- From Thatcher's Economic PolicyThatcher's War on InflationLearn how Thatcher tried to bring inflation down, and why 364 economists said it would not work.
- From The Pound in Post-War Britain — 1945 to 1976Incomes Policy and the Three-Day WeekLearn how Britain tried to control pay and prices in the early 1970s, and why it ended with power cut to three days a week.
- From Quantitative EasingQuantitative Tightening and Rate RisesLearn how the rate rises of 2021 to 2023 hit mortgages and the government's bill, and how the Bank began selling its bonds.
- From Japan's Lost Decade — 1989 to 2006Falling Prices in Japan, 1999 to 2005Cheaper goods sound like good news, but falling prices made old debts weigh more.
The economics
The ideas behind the story, one at a time.
The data
Country figures from the Atlas, from World Bank and other named sources.