10 Times Inflation Destroyed Economies
4. Yugoslavia (1990s)
The Balkan wars of the 1990s caused a lot of hardship for the people of former Yugoslavia; including a galloping inflation. In just the one month of January, 1994, inflation in Serbia rose by 313 million %. Prices doubled every 34 hours (which is nothing compared to Zimbabwe in the same time period.) The currency ended up getting revalued 5 times in all between 1993 and 1995, all to no avail. The major cause of the inflation was a recession triggered by overseas borrowing, and an on-going political and military conflict of the late 1980s and the following decade.
Yugoslavia’s inflation was driven by money printing, and made worse by UN sanctions on the country which saw a sharp drop in output. By 1990 the government had used up its own hard currency reserves, and began to appropriate savings of citizens by restricting access to their savings in government banks. The eventual break-up of the state only added to the country’s inflation woes.
