Germany’s Weimar Republic: 1918-23

Weimar Germany is a case where hyperinflation and default eroded the punishingly high debt burdens. In 1918, the government ended the war with a debt to GDP ratio of about 160% after their considerable borrowing to finance war spending. Total government obligations rose to an extraordinary level of 913% GDP after the Allied parties imposed reparation payments on Germany to be paid in gold 1918 and 1919 was a period of economic contraction, with real incomes falling 5% and 10% in those two years. The Reich then spurred a recovery in incomes and asset prices at the end of this period by devaluing the paper mark against the dollar and gold by 50% between December 1919 and Feb 1920. As the currency fell, inflation took off. Between 1920 and 1922, inflation eroded government debts denominated in local currency, but made no impact on the reparation debt since it was owed in gold. But in the summer of 1922, the Reich stopped making payments on reparations, effectively going into default Over a series of negotiations lasting until 1932, the reparation debts were restructured and effectively wiped out. The currency depreciation led creditors to favor short-term loans and to move money out of the currency which required the central bank to buy more debt in order to fill in the void. This spiral led to hyperinflation that peaked in 1923 and left local government debt at 0.09% GDP.

魏玛德国是恶性通货膨胀和违约行为侵蚀了较高的债务负担的一种情况。1918年，政府在债务与国内生产总值比率大幅度下降后，结束战争开支约160％的战争。政府义务总额达到国际劳工局913％的非凡水平，因为盟国对德国实行赔偿金要支付黄金8 1918年和1919年是经济收缩期，实际收入在这两个时期下降了5％和10％年份。然后，帝国在这个时期结束时激发了收入和资产价格的恢复，从1919年12月到1920年2月之间，将美元和黄金的纸币贬值了50％。随着货币下跌，通货膨胀起飞。1920年至1922年间，通货膨胀削弱了以当地货币计价的政府债务，但由于黄金被拖欠，对偿还债务没有影响。但在1922年夏天，帝国停止赔偿，有效地进入违约在一系列直到1932年的谈判中，赔偿债务重组并有效消灭。货币贬值导致债权人支持短期贷款，并将货币从货币中移出，要求中央银行购买更多的债务，以填补空白。这种螺旋形式导致恶性通货膨胀在1923年达到顶峰，使地方政府债务占GDP的0.09％。

The Reichsbank increased its printing after the 1919/20 devaluation and the printing accelerated in 1922 and 1923. By the end of the hyperinflation in 1923 the Reichsbank had increased the money supply by 1.2 trillion percent between 1919 and 1923.

帝国银行在1919/20年贬值之后增加了印刷，1922年和1923年印刷加快。在1923年恶性通货膨胀结束之前，帝国银行在1919年至1923年之间增加了货币供应量1.2万亿美元。

The case of Weimar is one of the most extreme inflationary deleveragings ever. At the end of the war, the Reich government was forced to choose between a shortage of cash and economic contraction or printing to stimulate incomes. The government chose to print and devalue to stimulate the economy, beginning with a 50% devaluation at the end of 1919 that brought the economy out of recession. Eventually, a loss of confidence in the currency and an extreme amount of printing led to hyperinflation and left the currency basically worthless. As shown below, the currency fell essentially 100% against gold and printing was exponential. Starting debt of 913% fell to basically zero. Non-reparations government debt of 133% GDP in 1919 was wiped out by inflation. Gold-based reparation of 780% GDP effectively went into default in the summer of 1922 when reparation payments were halted. I summarize this in the table below and then go through the pieces.

魏玛案是有史以来最极端的通货膨胀的杠杆化之一。在战争结束时，帝国政府被迫选择现金短缺和经济收缩或印刷以刺激收入。政府选择印刷和贬值来刺激经济，从1919年底的经济衰退50年来的贬值开始。最终，对货币信心的丧失和极度的印刷导致恶性通货膨胀，使得货币基本上毫无价值。如下图所示，货币对黄金基本上跌100％，印刷指数。起始债务913％下降到基本为零。通货膨胀使1919年国内生产总值的133％的政府债务无偿偿还。1922年夏季，当赔偿金停止时，国内生产总值的780％的黄金赔偿实际上是违约的。我在下表中总结了这一点，然后详细介绍了这些。

The next chart shows the aggregate government obligations owed and its two pieces, the gold-based reparations and other government debt:

下图显示了政府义务总额及其两项债务：黄金偿还和其他政府债务：

As discussed, the non-reparations government debt was eroded rapidly through inflation. While the reparations were not techincally imposed until 1921, they effectively existed shortly after the war and it was mostly a question of negotiating how big they would be (the official amount was settled at the start of 1921 and then reduced that spring by about 50%, still a huge sum). Because the reparations were denominated in gold, they held their value until Germany ceased payments in 1922. They were then restrutured several times over the next decade until they were effectively wiped out.

如所讨论的那样，通过通货膨胀，非赔偿政府债务迅速消失。虽然赔偿在1921年之前没有被技术强制，但战争后不久就有效地存在，而且大多是谈判谈判的大问题（官方数量在1921年初解决，然后将春季减少了约50％ ，仍然是一个巨大的和）。由于这些赔款是以黄金计价的，所以他们持有价值，直到德国在1922年停止付款。然后他们在接下来的十年中被限制了几次，直到被有效地消灭为止。