Four Ends of the Greek Hyperinflation of 1941-1946

Places emphasis on policy decision-making in Greece in the 1940s which resulted in an extraordinary long fifty months hyperinflation. Throughout the entire period, the government of Greece was financed mainly from seigniorage, and barely at all from fiscal taxation. The author asks how this was contrived over so long a period without destroying the tax-base afforded by the transactions demanded for flat money. The book is, however, far more than an extended analysis of monetary economics. Rather it explores the history and structural basis for the policies pursued by the occupation and liberation governments of Greece, and their interactions with the policies of the Axis and later, British authorities. For sources, the work draws heavily not only on the existing literature, but also on the Bank of England and British Treasury papers of the period. Dr Michael Palairet is a lecturer at Department of Economic and Social History, University of Edinburgh.