Ukraine: The World’s Second-Highest Inflation
I estimate the current annual implied inflation rate in Ukraine to be 92%. This is the world’s second-highest inflation rate, far lower than Venezuela’s 480% but slightly higher than Syria’s 75%.
I regularly estimate the annual inflation rates for Ukraine. To calculate those inflation rates, I use dynamic purchasing power parity (PPP) theory. I computed the 92% rate by using black-market exchange rate data that the Johns Hopkins-Cato Institute Troubled Currencies Project has collected over the past year.
A recent front-page feature article in the New York Times attests to the severity of Ukraine’s inflation proble...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 15, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Venezuela: Not Hyperinflating--Yet
Although Venezuela’s inflation has soared (see: Up, Up, and Away), Venezuela is not experiencing a hyperinflationary episode–yet. Since the publication of Prof. Phillip Cagan’s famous 1956 study The Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation, the convention has been to define hyperinflation as when the monthly inflation rate exceeds 50%.
I regularly estimate the monthly inflation rates for Venezuela. To calculate those inflation rates, I use dynamic purchasing power parity (PPP) theory. While Venezuela’s monthly inflation rate has not advanced beyond the 50% per month mark on a sustained basis, it is dangerously close. In...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 4, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Venezuela’s Inflation: Up, Up, and Away
Like the 2009 Oscar award-winning Pixar film Up, Venezuela’s annual inflation rate has soared sky high (see the chart below). On December 31, 2014, Venezuela’s bolivar traded at a VEF/USD rate of 171 and the implied annual inflation rate stood at 169%. In May of 2015, Venezuela’s bolivar collapsed and the implied annual inflation rate broke the 500% barrier. On May 28, 2015, the VEF/USD rate was 413, a 59% depreciation in the bolivar since January 1st. Not surprisingly, the implied annual inflation rate stood at a staggering 495%. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 1, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Venezuela: World's Highest Inflation Rate
Venezuela’s bolivar is collapsing. And as night follows day, Venezuela’s annual implied inflation rate is soaring. Last week, the annual inflation rate broke through the 500% level. It now stands at 510%.
When inflation rates are elevated, standard economic theory and reliable empirical techniques allow us to produce accurate inflation estimates. With free market exchange-rate data (usually black-market data), the inflation rate can be calculated. The principle of purchasing power parity (PPP), which links changes in exchange rates and changes in prices, allows for a reliable inflation estimate.
To calculate the infl...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 26, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Follow Panama: Dollarize
Most central banks do one thing well: they produce monetary mischief. Indeed, for most emerging market countries, a central bank is a recipe for disaster.
The solution: replace domestic currencies with sound foreign currencies. Panama is a prime example of this type of switch. Panama adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency in 1904. It is one of the best-performing countries in Latin America (see the accompanying table). In 2014, economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean was a measly 0.8 percent. In contrast, Panama’s growth rate was 6.2 percent. Not surprisingly, it was the only country in Latin America...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Health Cooperation In The New U.S.-Cuban Relationship
Four months after the surprise announcement of his determination to normalize relations with Cuba, President Barack Obama is rapidly translating that wish into reality, with the cooperation of Cuban counterparts and widespread support among Americans. On April 11, the Summit of the Americas featured the first meeting of the two countries’ presidents in over fifty years. Three days later, even amidst a struggle with Congress over a possible nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration announced it will remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a step Carl Meacham, Director of the Center for Strate...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 29, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: J. Stephen Morrison Tags: Featured Global Health Bill Frist Cuba cuban health care Raúl Castro U.S.-Cuban relationship Source Type: blogs
Doctor’s death an “inconvenience” for patients
An investigation is underway after a Chicago-area doctor is found dead — a suicide according to the medical examiner. What demands investigation is the callousness with which the this doctor’s death was reported by the media — and received by neighbors, many health care professionals themselves.
I’m alerted to the death initially by a Facebook friend: “Pamela, check this out!” Headline: Police: Doctor found dead near hospital in Berwyn.
The facts:
On Thursday, April 16, a maintenance worker calls the police to request a well-being check on a tenant, Dr. Jon Azkue, a 54-year-old physician employed...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 21, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Pamela Wible, MD Tags: Physician Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Venezuela Reaches the Final Stage of Socialism: No Toilet Paper
David Boaz
In 1990 I went to a Cato Institute conference in what was then still the Soviet Union. We were told to bring our own toilet paper, which was in fact useful advice. Now, after only 16 years of Chavista rule, Venezuela has demonstrated that “Socialism of the 21st Century” is pretty much like socialism in the 20th century. Fusion reports:
Venezuela’s product shortages have become so severe that some hotels in that country are asking guests to bring their own toilet paper and soap, a local tourism industry spokesman said on Wednesday….
“It’s an extreme situation,” says Xinia Camacho, owner of a 20-roo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 5, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
Ukraine: The World’s Second-Highest Inflation
Steve H. Hanke
Venezuela has the dubious honor of registering the world’s highest inflation rate. According to my estimate, the annual implied inflation rate in Venezuela is 252%.
The only other country in which this rate is in triple digits is Ukraine, where the inflation rate is 111%. The only encouraging thing to say about Ukraine’s shocking figure is that it’s an improvement over my February 24th estimate of 272%—an estimate that attracted considerable attention because Matt O’Brien of the Washington Post understood my calculations and reported on them in the Post’s “Wonk blog.”
As a bailout has starte...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 3, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
If Poor Nations Want Economic Convergence and Capital Accumulation, They Need Good Policy
Daniel J. Mitchell
There’s a “convergence” theory in economics that suggests, over time, that “poor nations should catch up with rich nations.”
But in the real world, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
There’s an interesting and informative article at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank which explores this theory. It asks why most low-income and middle-income nations are not “converging” with countries from the developed world.
…only a few countries have been able to catch up with the high per capita income levels of the developed world and stay there. By American living standards (as...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 31, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Washington Should Stop Equating Ugly Regimes and Security Threats
Ted Galen Carpenter
President Obama raised eyebrows last week when he issued an executive order declaring Venezuela to be a threat to national security. It would be pertinent to ask just how that deeply divided, nearly bankrupt country could menace the security of the global superpower. Venezuela has no long-range ballistic missiles or bombers, much less nuclear weapons. It does not have a large, well-equipped army. The Venezuelan navy is both small and antiquated. Although rumors continue to circulate that the leftist government of President Nicolás Maduro flirts with terrorist organizations in neighboring Col...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 17, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
Will the Venezuelan Opposition Fall into UNASUR’s Trap?
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
A new political crisis is brewing in Venezuela as the economy continues its free fall, social unrest grows, and the government escalates its crackdown of the opposition. Two weeks ago, the mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, was arbitrarily arrested under spurious changes of planning a coup. Other leading figures of the opposition are being targeted by Nicolás Maduro’s regime and could be detained at any time.
Once again, the Venezuelan opposition, as well as international human rights organizations and former presidents from other Latin American countries, have demanded that the Union of South Ameri...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Responding to the White House Response on ISDS
Simon Lester
Yesterday, my colleague Dan Ikenson blogged here about an op-ed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in which she was critical of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in trade agreements.
Jeff Zients, director of the National Economic Council, posted a response to Warren on the White House website. In this post, I’m going to comment briefly on his response, going through item by item. His statements are in bold; my comments follow in bullet points.
Zients: “The purpose of investment provisions in our trade agreements is to provide American individuals and businesses who do b...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 27, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Simon Lester Source Type: blogs
