The U.S. dollar is a handy backup when a country’s currency loses its value. After Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation hit its peak (or its nadir) in 2009, they used U.S. dollars but didn’t ha…
The Less Obvious Way To Conserve Wildlife
Attempts to encourage African wildlife conservation have changed incentives that affect African villagers and U.S. hunters.…
The Travels of Mobile Money
Zimbabwe’s monetary crises used to create money laundering…literally. To preserve their limited supply of worn U.S. dollars, households had to wash them: Now though, they have a new soluti…
The Economy Where Black is Banned
Like Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe, wherever property rights are unpredictable, we can assume that we have a command economy.…
The Strange World of Venezuelan Hyperinflation
Because of hyperinflation, Venezuela needs billions of bank notes so that businesses and consumers can pay the insane prices that rise daily.…
Why We Need Trophy Hunting
Expensive trophy hunting packages demonstrate how the price system gives a value to animals that helps to preserve them.…
Where to Spend 100 Trillion (Zimbabwe) Dollars
Coping with hyperinflation, Zimbabwe finally had to replace their currency with the US. dollar. A low inflation rate should be their monetary policy goal.…
Expanding How We Measure Inflation
Our CPI measure of the inflation rate has been debated because it could be calculated using a chained CPU, could be real time, and excludes some seniors.…
Coin Matters
Hearing that Zimbabweans had a limited supply of coins, I recalled one person’s response to Starbucks’ price hike to $2.01 for a tall coffee in NYC: “I can’t believe it. Now I need to walk…
Laundering Zimbabwean money
In Zimbabwe, people are laundering money. Literally. When their U.S. dollars look too gray and faded, Zimbabweans wash and dry them. In this Wall Street Journal photo, dollar bills, shirts and sheets …