Spanish Inflation

Economics Economics Questions
1

Heres’ somethnig I have been thinking about for a bit now, and I wonder whether you have any commens on it:

Most historians agree that during the time of the great niflux of gold into the Spanish treasuries, the value of gold declined - which is generally referred to as inflation.

So far so good, but here’s my question: during other inflations, like the one in Austria and Germany after WWI or the one in Serbia just around the time of the collapse of the Communist regime, people were trying to get rid of their money as fast as possible to not risk finding it without value the next day (or an hour later).

But I imagine that during the Spanish ‘inflation’, people didn’t try to get rid of their gold as fast as possible but rather tried to get more gold into their hands. Or have their been reports of people running around with bags of gold hoping to get something, anything for it, and maybe even preferring to barter instead?

So, my question is: was there a fundamental difference between the ‘inflation’ of the Spanish empire and that of other times, or were they more or less the same thing?

Thanks,

2

For starters, gold was an international money, therefore mass gold findings allowed spaniards to import goods from other countries in ever greater quantities. Gold in that sense did not perform any differently from an export good that is produced.

This brings us to this second point. The German hyperinflations were created to lower interest rates and prevent a government becoming bankrupt. It was a subsidy to borrowers, like banking inflation today. The spanish inflation was a direct increase of private assets.

3

So it was more akin to “dutch disease” than inflation. Makes sense. Thank you.