Venezuela's hyperinflation, the 57th confirmed episode in the Hanke-Krus table, began in November 2016 and continues to this day. Professor Hanke has monitored it in real time since the beginning, providing some of the only reliable inflation measurements available for Venezuela.
Why Venezuela?
Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) and his successor Nicolás Maduro expanded government spending massively through oil revenue and, when oil prices fell, through money creation. The Venezuelan bolÃvar, once pegged to the U.S. dollar at competitive rates, was progressively devalued.
When oil prices collapsed in 2014–2016, the government faced an impossible fiscal gap and turned to the printing press. The result:
- The money supply expanded by orders of magnitude
- Black-market exchange rates diverged sharply from official rates
- Price controls created shortages, pushing consumers to informal markets
- The bolÃvar lost virtually all its purchasing power
Hanke's Monitoring
Since 2016, Hanke and the Troubled Currencies Project have tracked Venezuela's inflation using:
- Black-market exchange rate data (DolarToday and other real-time sources)
- PPP methodology applied daily
- Weekly updates published on Twitter/X (#HankeInflationDashboard)
📊 Selected Hanke Estimates from Forbes:
- October 2018: Annual inflation rate = 60,324% (monthly = 94%)
- November 2018: 36 months of confirmed hyperinflation
- 2019: Peak annual inflation above 10,000%
Venezuela became the 57th confirmed hyperinflation episode in the Hanke-Krus Table in 2016 — the first new episode documented in the Americas since Brazil (1993–1994).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2018/10/23/venezuelas-hyperinflation-24-months-and-counting/
The Solution Hanke Prescribes
From 1995–1996, Hanke served as Presidential Adviser to the Venezuelan government and proposed a currency board to prevent exactly this outcome. The advice was rejected. Hanke's prescription for Venezuela remains consistent:
"Dollarize or adopt a currency board — end discretionary monetary policy entirely."
— Professor Steve H. Hanke
Without a credible institutional anchor for monetary policy, Venezuela's cycle of money printing, devaluation, and inflation cannot be broken through conventional measures.
Explore Further
- The Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table — Where Venezuela ranks among all 62 episodes
- What Is Hyperinflation? — Definition and methodology
- Zimbabwe — The second-worst hyperinflation in history
- Hanke's Solutions to Hyperinflation
- Dollarization — The solution Hanke recommends for Venezuela
- Home: Hyperinflation