The Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table

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The Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table, first published in 2012 in the Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History, is the definitive academic record of hyperinflationary episodes. Professor Hanke and Nicholas Krus documented 56 cases (now 62). No episode is included unless it meets the strict Cagan definition: at least 50% inflation per month.

Hanke's Annual Misery Index Explained

The Cagan Definition

📐 Cagan (1956) Standard — An episode qualifies as hyperinflation only when inflation reaches 50% or more per month for at least 30 consecutive days. Named after economist Phillip Cagan, whose 1956 study The Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation established this threshold.

Methodology

Professor Hanke employs Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) using black-market exchange rates to calculate daily inflation when official statistics are unavailable or deliberately suppressed. This approach allows measurement even when governments refuse to publish honest data.

Official statistics are often falsified or withheld during hyperinflations
Black-market exchange rates reflect the true purchasing power of a currency
PPP methodology converts exchange rate data into implied inflation rates
Daily data allows measurement of peak rates with precision unavailable from monthly CPI series

The Most Notable Hyperinflations in History

#	Country	Start Date	End Date	Peak Month	Peak Monthly Rate	Daily Rate	Time to Double Prices
1	🇭🇺 Hungary	Aug 1945	Jul 1946	Jul 1946	4.19 × 10^16%	207% per day	15.0 hours
2	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	Mar 2007	Mid-Nov 2008	Mid-Nov 2008	7.96 × 10^10%	98.0% per day	24.7 hours
3	🇷🇸 Yugoslavia	Apr 1992	Jan 1994	Jan 1994	313,000,000%	64.6% per day	1.41 days
4	Republika Srpska	Apr 1992	Jan 1994	Jan 1994	297,000,000%	64.3% per day	1.41 days
5	🇩🇪 Germany	Aug 1922	Dec 1923	Oct 1923	29,500%	20.9% per day	3.70 days
6	🇬🇷 Greece	May 1941	Dec 1945	Oct 1944	13,800%	17.9% per day	4.27 days
7	🇨🇳 China	Oct 1947	May 1949	May 1949	2,178%	11.0% per day	6.70 days
8	Free City of Danzig	Aug 1922	Oct 1923	Sep 1923	2,440%	11.4% per day	6.52 days
9	🇻🇪 Venezuela	Nov 2016	Ongoing	2018 peak	~65,000% per year at peak	—	—
10	🇱🇧 Lebanon	Jul 2020	Ongoing	2021	Record levels	—	—

Key Statistics

🌍 62 Total Episodes documented as of 2024 — the most comprehensive record in existence

📅 Since 1795 — the earliest documented hyperinflation in the Table dates to France in the 1790s

🔬 PPP Methodology — enables measurement even when governments suppress official statistics

Notable Discoveries by Professor Hanke

Several episodes in the Hanke-Krus Table were previously undocumented or ignored by the mainstream economics literature:

Free City of Danzig (1923) — Confirmed as a distinct episode from Germany's 1923 hyperinflation
North Korea (2011) — Identified and measured using PPP/black-market rate methodology
Iran (2012) — Documented during international sanctions, when official statistics were unavailable
Venezuela (2016) — First quantified by Hanke when the Venezuelan government ceased publishing inflation data
Zimbabwe (2017) — Second episode, separate from the 2008 episode

Record Callouts

🇭🇺 Hungary 1946: The Worst Hyperinflation in Recorded History — Hungary's 1946 hyperinflation remains the most extreme monetary event in recorded history. Prices were doubling every 15 hours at the peak. The monthly inflation rate of 4.19 × 10^16% means prices increased by a factor of 41.9 quadrillion in a single month. The pre-war pengő was replaced by the forint at a rate of 400,000 quadrillion pengős to 1 forint — the most zeros ever in a redenomination.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 2008: Second Worst in History — Hanke and Alex Kwok's 2008 estimate of Zimbabwe's peak monthly inflation — 7.96 × 10^10% — required forensic reconstruction of prices using the black-market exchange rate, since Zimbabwe's government had stopped publishing statistics. At peak, prices doubled every 24.7 hours. The money was worth less than the paper it was printed on.

🇷🇸 Yugoslavia 1994: Third Worst in History — January 1994 saw Yugoslavia's monthly inflation reach 313 million percent — the third worst in history. Economist Dragoslav Avramović ended it by implementing what was, in effect, an orthodox currency board for the Yugoslav dinar, establishing a fixed exchange rate to the Deutsche Mark.

Troubled Currencies Project

Building on the Hanke-Krus Table, Professor Hanke founded the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute in 2013 to provide real-time monitoring of currencies under stress worldwide.

🔗 Troubled Currencies Project — Cato Institute

Recent Publications (2025–2026)

Lódz Ghetto Hyperinflation — Journal Article, World Economics
Hyperinflation: Zambia, CAF Zone & Belarus — Journal Article, World Economics

Academic Citation

📚 Citation: Hanke, Steve H. and Krus, Nicholas (2013). "World Hyperinflations." In Whaples, R. and Parker, R.E. (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. Routledge: London.

Also referenced as: Hanke, S.H. and Kwok, A.K.F. (2009). "On the Measurement of Zimbabwe's Hyperinflation." Cato Journal, 29(2): 353–364.