The pandemic has been likened to a war, though one against a disease, not other humans. Like a war, it is reshaping economies and demanding huge increases in public spending and monetary support. It will certainly bequeath far bigger public debt and central bank balance sheets.
Does this mean the question of whether this long debt cycle must end in inflation has to be answered in the affirmative? No, but this is possible. After the first world war, Germany inflated away its domestic war debt in the hyperinflation of 1923. After the second world war, the UK emerged with fiscal debt of 250 per cent of gross domestic product. Modest inflation helped erode a part of it.
So what might happen now? We need to start from initial conditions. We entered this crisis with high levels of private debt, low interest rates and persistently low inflation. In the group of seven leading high-income countries, none has debt close to that of the UK in 1945. But Japan’s net debt was 154 per cent of GDP and Italy’s 121 per cent pre-crisis.