Inflation by the Decades: 1970s

For the 1970s, we recorded inflation data for 95 countries and territories. The oil crisis ravaged many economies throughout the world. As such, there were cases of elevated inflation in every region of the world. Similar to the 1980s, multiple South American countries battled high inflation, and sometimes hyperinflation, in the case of Chile. 3 Outside of South America, Israel saw high inflation because of troubles with its neighbors and the oil crisis. Furthermore, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ghana suffered from high inflation. Aside from causing inflation in developing countries, the oil crisis caused elevated inflation in the industrialized world. Countries such as the United States faced Stagflation, and other developed European countries such as Spain and Italy had double-digit inflation rates. Throughout the decade, 9 countries had annualized inflation rates of over 20%, and 48 countries had a rate over 10%.