I am very sympathetic to your general question. I agree hyperinflation and inflation do affect the most vulnerable population. However, there are no macroeconomic-policy ways to fight (hyper)inflation other than the creation of independent central banks. Why? Because the real reason behind (hyper)inflation is just institutional arrangements are permissive. Complementary measures include fiscal rules to reduce or manage public deficits. Without the aforementined long-term legal arrangements, FX exchange liberalization and comercial liberalization will not be feasible. Of course, another interpretation of your question is possible: once (hyper)inflation is present, economic agents will change their strategic behavior to minimize their private cost inside such an environment (for instance, they will save in dollars to avoid paying huge inflation taxes).

Thanks Carlos for your answer. I think, except for cases of wars or natural catastrophes, hyperinflationary processes have their origin in deficits of public accounts. For these reasons, the search for the fiscal surplus is important. Governments should promote economic activity and the trade balance surplus with genuine savings to maintain the exchange rate, and not with monetary emission, a measure that is inflationary. There there are two alternatives to generate a public sector surplus: increase revenues or lower expenses. For the first, there is little field for action given the record tax pressure; for the second, the field to act is extensive and programs that lead to a significant deceleration of spending, by improving efficiency, should be applied. Resolving the fiscal issue is fundamental to the process of "disinflation".

Inflation hurts everyone. The real income declines. controling it depends on the transmission mechanism of the country. First identlift the source of inflation and act accordingly. If you rein in inflationary expectations future inflation comes down. Sometimes multiple instruments need to be applied. These are general rules and much depends on many details. There is no quick solution

Hi Pedro. Here in Brazil we've had one of the worst cases of hyperinflation in the world history. Some economic historians say that we didn't reach hyperinflation point, and some others say that it was reached in 1989. As you mentioned, the most vulnerable people on wealth distribution pyramid were hurt. Gustavo Franco, the Central Bank President in 1994 and 'a hero' of fighting hyperinflation in Brazil said: "Inflation is a tribute imposed to the poor people of a nation". Here, inflation "ate" the value of money, so the poor people couldn't afford their basic consumption, whereas people who had money to invest could become rich by applying their money and having it back corrected by the inflation rates (something we called "overnight operations", investments adjusted by inflation rate day by day).

Two sources of inflation were identified in Brazil: the first and most obvious one is the government printing money with no limits to finance its deficit since XIX century ("Encilhamento" was one of the first crisis of this nature that Brazil faced). This practice was sustained since 1980 decade for financing heterodox policies and import substitution industrialization. The other source is what André Lara Resende and Pérsio Arida called inertial component of inflation: this phenomena was so resistant in Brazil that people were already used to it. So when defining prices and setting contracts, inflation was "counted": if a producer believes that prices will be very high in one month, he will set the prices so high that he can afford the future high costs of the next month. To survive, millions of people had to think this way, and inflation turned into a self-fullfilling prophecy.

In 1994, "Real" plan defeated inflation. It was an orthodox plan after 5 failed plans against inflation. "Real" operated against the two faces described above: sanitizing government balance sheets by privatization of some companies, reducing the inefficiency of public service by reducing its payment sheet, having more control over the money printed and handed to the public by open market operations, etc.. "Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal", a law forbidding

To combat inertial inflation, URV was created: "Unidade Real de Valor" (real unity of value). The ald currency was so devalued that we had to substitute for another, but just changing its name wouldn't work (we tried that before!). URV was a transition currency: people would use Cruzeiro Real to pay their bills but would set their future contracts in URVs, the transition currency. Slowly, all payments would turn to URV, which was indexed by the US dollar as a measure of its value (because the stability of the dollar was necessary to defeat the fast change in our currency values, to defeat the mechanism that made the currency lose its valuw within days). When the transition was complete, URV turned into "Real", Brazil's currency till today (the change was made in 1994).

Now, our inflation rate is in 4% a year. The order in government debt has been almost lost in recent times, but by now the conquers of Real plan were not lost.

I have lots of documents in Portuguese about the plan. If you want them, message me. If you prefer works in English, I have found this one Article Brazil (A): The Real Plan

Seems nice because it talks about the heterodox plans that preceded Real and failed.

There is this podcast about it if you'd like something fun and non-academic: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil

There is also a movie called "Real - O Plano por Trás da História" which is kinda camp but its nice. And in the field of non-academic material, there are two books about it: "3000 dias no Bunker - Um Plano na Cabeça e um País na Mão" of journalist Guilherme Fiuza, about Gustavo Franco's trajectory, and "Saga Brasileira: A Longa Luta de um Povo por Sua Moeda" of journalist Mirian Leitão. I don't know if you can find them in English or Spanish. This last one is really fun because it contains depoiments of ordinary people and some curiosities, like when Brazilian Army was incubed of transporting the new currency to the Amazon Forest communities. Other country's Armies use weapons. Our Army's weapon was the new currency in the war against inflation.

I'd advice you searched for material in English and Spanish from the following economists, responsible for creating and implementing Real plan:

-André Lara Resende

-Pérsio Arida

-Edmar Bacha

-Gustavo Franco

I hope I have helped you someway. Thanks for reading it. And I'm sorry about the mistakes in my English.

Thank you again and best regards,

Bruna Scarpioni

University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

This solution may not be the best solution, but a solution regardless.

If the reason is not the low supply of everything (because of war or sanctions for example): Try to ditch the currency altogether. Though difficult, the government has to try its best to buy back any available currency (for example in exchange of US dollar). Fair exchange (to US dollar) would certainly be impossible at this point, but regardless a better alternative than let the inflation run havoc. Dollarization may not be a preferable choice by any government, since it loses any means to influence its own economy. But let's be realistic! At the Venezuela's current stage, we have to be very generous to call it an "economy" at all.

If the reason is an extreme low supply of basic goods, then the only solution is to solve the real reason (in most cases war or others).