Hyperinflation and the collapse of the bolívar

Venezuela's inflation chart is dominated by one of the largest hyperinflations on record. Falling oil prices from 2014, a shrinking oil sector and exchange controls left the government financing large deficits through the Banco Central de Venezuela, whose money creation fed rapid price increases that began accelerating in 2016. Annual inflation reached several thousand percent in 2017 and an IMF estimate of about 65,000 percent in 2018, and the central bank stopped publishing regular inflation data for several years. The currency was repeatedly redenominated by removing zeros, including in 2008, 2018 and again in 2021, and a multi-tier exchange-rate system created large gaps between official and market rates. Much commercial activity moved to US dollars informally, and the fall in real output, which roughly halved from its 2013 level, left the economy far smaller than at the start of the decade.