Economics - 2020: What Happens When Everything Shuts Down Except the 'Money Printing Presses'

Abstract

This short paper indicates how the massive fiscal deficits financed by creation of fiat money by central banks worldwide (undertaken in response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic) may lead to an inflationary depression. In particular, the supply disruptions caused by the pandemic inhibit the production of real goods and services necessary to absorb the extensive money printing to fund the large amounts of government spending could lead to an increase in the prices of real goods and services that is comparable to that occurring during the hyperinflation in Germany in 1923 except on a broad international scale.