TYPES OF INFLATION
Depending upon the range of increase, and its severity,
inflation may be classified into three broad
categories:
I. Low Inflation
Such inflation is slow and on predictable11 lines which might
be called small or gradual12. This is a
comparative term which puts it opposite to the faster, bigger
and unpredictable inflations. Low
inflation takes place in a longer period and the range of
increase is usually in single digit. Such
inflation has also been called as creeping inflation12. We
may take an example of the monthly
inflation rate of a country for six months being 2.3%, 2.6%,
2.7%, 2.9%, 3.1% and 3.4%. Here the
range of change is of 1.1% and over a period of six months.
II. Galloping Inflation
This is a very high inflation running in the range of
double-digit or triple digit (i.e. 20%, 100% or
200% a year)13. In the decades of 1970s and 1980s, many
Latin American countries such as
Argentina, Chile, and Brazil had such rates of inflationin the
range of 50 to 700 per cent. The
Russian economy did show such inflation after the
disintegration of the ex-USSR in the late 1980s.
Contemporary Journalism has given some other names to this
inflationhopping inflation, jumping
inflation and running or runaway inflation.14
III. Hyperinflation
This form of inflation is large and accelerating15 which
might have the annual rates in million or
even trillion16 . In such inflation not only range of increase is
very large but the increase takes place
in a very short span of time, prices shoot up overnight.