Chapter 156 - The Stagnation-Inflation Conundrum of the 1970s

The Stagnation-Inflation Conundrum of the 1970s

The 1970s marked one of the most turbulent and perplexing economic periods in modern American history. During this decade, the United States confronted an unprecedented phenomenon that challenged the fundamental assumptions of postwar economic theory: stagflation. This portmanteau of "stagnation" and "inflation" described a toxic combination of sluggish economic growth, persistently high unemployment, and accelerating price increases—conditions that conventional economic wisdom had deemed theoretically impossible. The stagflation crisis not only inflicted severe economic hardship on millions of Americans but also precipitated a fundamental reconceptualization of macroeconomic theory and policy that continues to shape central banking practices today.^[1][2]

The Collapse of the Phillips Curve Consensus

At the heart of the stagflation puzzle lay the breakdown of the Phillips Curve, a relationship that had guided economic policymaking throughout the 1960s. Developed by economist A.W. Phillips in the late 1950s, this framework appeared to demonstrate a stable, inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. The curve suggested a predictable trade-off: policymakers could accept higher inflation to achieve lower unemployment, or vice versa. This relationship provided what seemed to be a reliable policy menu, allowing governments to use fiscal and monetary tools to navigate between these two macroeconomic objectives.^[3][4]

The Phillips Curve's apparent stability throughout the 1960s gave policymakers confidence that they could "fine-tune" the economy. Keynesian economists of the demand-pull school used the curve to illustrate how inflation rates varied with excess demand in the economy. When unemployment threatened to rise, expansionary monetary or fiscal policy could stimulate demand, pushing unemployment down at the cost of modestly higher inflation. This framework appeared vindicated by the experience of the 1960s, when unemployment fell to historically low levels even as inflation remained relatively modest.^[3]

However, the 1970s shattered this consensus. Beginning around 1970, both unemployment and inflation began rising simultaneously—an outcome that the Phillips Curve relationship could not accommodate. Unemployment rose from 3.6% to 4.9% between 1968 and 1970, while CPI inflation simultaneously increased from 4.7% to 5.6%. This pattern intensified throughout the decade, with unemployment reaching 9% in May 1975 while inflation soared to 13.5% by 1980. The Misery Index, constructed by economist Arthur Okun as the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates, reached an unprecedented peak of 20.76% in 1980, reflecting the severe economic distress experienced by Americans.^{[5][6][7][4][8][1]}

The crisis in the American economy—characterized by growing unemployment alongside high inflation—seemed to signal a fundamental breakdown of the Phillips relationship. Theorists and advisers who had relied on the curve failed to predict the emergence of stagflation, forcing a wholesale reevaluation of macroeconomic theory.^[6][3]

The Oil Shocks and Supply-Side Disruptions

The immediate trigger for 1970s stagflation came from a series of devastating oil price shocks. The first crisis erupted in 1973 when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an oil embargo on the United States and its allies in response to the Yom Kippur War. This embargo quadrupled crude oil prices from approximately $3 to $12 per barrel, dramatically increasing energy costs across the entire economy. The ripple effects were profound: transportation, manufacturing, and heating costs soared, forcing businesses to either absorb massive cost increases or pass them on to consumers through higher prices.^[1][5]

The energy crisis represented a classic example of cost-push inflation—inflation driven not by excess demand but by sudden increases in production costs. The CPI energy component rose 26% (a 58% annual rate) between September 1973 and March 1974. Because energy was a critical input for virtually every sector of the economy, these price increases propagated throughout the production chain, affecting everything from food and housing to healthcare and education.^{[9][10][11][1]}

A second oil shock struck in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, which disrupted Iranian oil production and reduced global oil supply by 4%. This crisis proved even more severe than the first, doubling crude oil prices from $15 to $30 per barrel and driving the CPI energy component up 56% (a 43% annual rate) between December 1978 and March 1980. The combined impact of these twin oil shocks was staggering: energy prices, which had risen at an annual rate of only 1.7% from 1957 to 1973, increased at an annual rate of 15.2% from December 1972 to December 1979.^[12][10][5]

The oil shocks exposed America's vulnerability to foreign oil dependence and demonstrated how supply disruptions could create simultaneous inflation and unemployment—a phenomenon that traditional Keynesian models struggled to explain. Supply shocks create inflation by raising costs while simultaneously hampering productivity and output, thereby increasing unemployment. This stood in stark contrast to demand-pull inflation, which occurs when "too many dollars chase too few goods" in an overheating economy typically characterized by low unemployment.^{[13][11][5][9]}

Monetary Policy Failures and the Great Inflation

While the oil shocks provided the immediate spark for stagflation, the deeper roots of the crisis lay in fundamental monetary policy failures during the 1960s and 1970s. The Federal Reserve's inconsistent approach to managing the money supply contributed significantly to inflationary pressures that were already building before the first oil shock.^[14][1]

A critical turning point came in 1965 when Federal Reserve Chairman William McChesney Martin shifted away from the low-inflation monetary orthodoxy that had characterized the early postwar period. The Martin Fed began accommodating expansionary fiscal policies driven by the escalating costs of the Vietnam War and President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society social programs. Government spending surged without corresponding tax increases, fueling aggregate demand and triggering widespread price increases. The combined increase in both defense and social welfare spending in the mid-to-late 1960s is credited with beginning an era known as the Great Inflation, which continued until 1981.^[15][16][17]

Between 1965 and 1973, the money supply grew at accelerating rates. While M1 had been increasing at an annual rate of less than 3% from 1960 to 1964, it accelerated to 4.7% in 1965, then to 6.6% in 1967 and 7.7% in 1968. This monetary expansion occurred even as inflation began to accelerate, rising from 2.4% in August 1972 to 7.4% a year later. Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns, who led the Fed from 1970 to 1978, presided over an easy money policy that drove nominal GDP growth rates to levels even higher than those experienced in the 1960s. The rate of change of the consumer price index rose from 6% per year in early 1970 to over 12% per year in late 1974, with an annual average rate of consumer price inflation of approximately 9% during Burns's tenure.^{[18][19][20][21]}

The Fed's approach during this period was characterized by what came to be known as "stop-go" policies: the Federal Reserve would tighten monetary policy when inflation rose, but then quickly reverse course when recession threatened, creating economic uncertainty and making long-term business planning difficult. This pattern was evident in the Fed's actions during the early 1970s, when it doubled the federal funds rate from 5% to 10% between late 1972 and mid-1973, only to cut it to 5.25% within a year. These rapid oscillations undermined the Fed's credibility and contributed to the entrenchment of inflationary expectations.^{[22][21][14][1]}

A particularly consequential policy failure was the Federal Reserve's delayed recognition of the severity of stagflation and its inadequate response in the early stages of the crisis. Burns believed that the country was not willing to accept unemployment rates in the range of 6% as a means of quelling inflation, leading him to argue that the Fed should not take on the responsibility for attempting to reduce inflation by itself. He advocated instead for some form of incomes policy—direct government intervention in wages and prices—rather than using monetary restraint alone to fight inflation.^[19][23][1]

The Nixon Wage and Price Controls Debacle

This reluctance to use monetary policy aggressively against inflation led to one of the most dramatic and ultimately counterproductive policy interventions of the era: President Richard Nixon's imposition of wage and price controls. On August 15, 1971, in a nationally televised address, Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices, designed to bring inflation down to a rate of 2 to 3% per year. This decision represented a complete reversal of Nixon's earlier promises; as recently as June 1971, he had pledged that he would not impose wage or price controls on Americans.^[24][25]

The freeze was initially popular, with 73% of Americans applauding the move. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 32.9 points the following day—its largest one-day rise until that time—and inflation temporarily declined to an annual rate of 4% during the freeze. However, these gains proved ephemeral. When the freeze was lifted in mid-November 1971, inflation continued unabated. A series of mandatory wage and price guidelines over the next eighteen months failed to bring inflation below 5%, necessitating a second wage and price freeze in June 1973.^[26][24]

The wage and price control apparatus created widespread distortions throughout the economy. Price controls resulted in shortages at the point of purchase, causing queues of consumers at fueling stations and increased production costs for industry. By artificially suppressing prices while underlying inflationary pressures continued to build, the controls simply postponed and likely worsened the eventual inflation. When the controls were finally abolished in April 1974, the inflation rate topped 12%. What the administration failed to appreciate was that the Great Inflation of 1973-1974 was not primarily a function of excess demand that could be controlled through price freezes; it resulted from supply shocks in the food and energy sectors.^[6][24][26]

The Bretton Woods Collapse and Dollar Depreciation

The stagflation crisis was further exacerbated by the collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system. On August 15, 1971—the same day he announced wage and price controls—Nixon also closed the "gold window," ending the convertibility of dollars to gold and effectively terminating the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. This decision was triggered by French and British intentions to convert their dollars into gold, which would have depleted U.S. gold reserves.^[25][16][27]

The fundamental cause of Bretton Woods' collapse was the inflationary monetary policy that had become inappropriate for the key currency country of the system. Increasing U.S. monetary growth led to rising inflation, which spread to the rest of the world through growing U.S. balance of payments deficits. As dollars flooded into countries like Germany, their monetary authorities attempted to sterilize these inflows but were eventually unsuccessful, leading to growing inflationary pressure internationally.^[16][15]

Following the collapse of Bretton Woods, the U.S. dollar became freely tradable and depreciated substantially. From 1971 to 1978, it lost around 30% of its value. This dollar depreciation contributed to inflation by making commodity producers demand higher prices to compensate for the dollar's decline. The weakening of the dollar, while exogenous to oil prices, was itself a delayed response to rising inflation from 1968 onwards. This pattern—of an overheated economy leading to inflation, dollar depreciation, and then to higher oil prices and another bout of stagflation—repeated itself in 1979.^[28][6]

The Wage-Price Spiral and Expectations Trap

As inflation persisted throughout the 1970s, it became increasingly self-reinforcing through a destructive wage-price spiral. Workers demanded higher wages to keep pace with rising prices, and businesses passed these increased labor costs onto consumers through higher prices, perpetuating the inflationary cycle. Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in labor contracts automatically increased wages with inflation, amplifying the spiral. Most significantly, expectations of continued inflation became self-fulfilling, as economic actors made decisions based on anticipated price increases.^[29][28][1]

This phenomenon highlighted the critical role of inflation expectations in determining actual inflation outcomes. The "expectations trap hypothesis" suggests that the Federal Reserve was effectively pushed into producing high inflation out of fear of violating the public's inflation expectations. When the public expects inflation to rise, workers demand higher wages preemptively, and firms raise prices in anticipation of higher costs. These actions translate expected inflation into actual inflation, even in the absence of excess demand.^[30][29]

The rise in expected inflation strongly supports the view that the Expectations Augmented Phillips Curve (EAPC) can explain the early, mild stagflation. Although the weakening economy was putting some downward pressure on inflation, overall inflation rose in accordance with EAPC as expected inflation kept rising. This mechanism helps explain why inflation persisted even during periods of economic slack and high unemployment—a pattern that contradicted the simple Phillips Curve relationship.^[6]

The Productivity Slowdown

Compounding these monetary and supply-side problems was a significant slowdown in productivity growth during the 1970s. U.S. productivity growth, which had averaged about 3% annually in the 1960s, fell to 1.6% in the 1970s. This productivity stagnation resulted from multiple factors, including aging industrial infrastructure, reduced investment in new technologies, and the shift toward service-oriented sectors with lower productivity growth rates compared to manufacturing.^[31][1]

The causes of this productivity slowdown have been extensively debated by economists. One significant factor was high energy prices, which made energy-intensive industries struggle to maintain efficiency. The 1973 oil price shock and subsequent energy crisis directly impacted productivity by raising costs and disrupting production processes. Additionally, increased antipollution regulations, while environmentally beneficial, imposed costs on businesses that temporarily dampened productivity gains.^[31][1]

An intriguing demographic explanation has also been advanced: the entry of baby boomers into the labor force. Many baby boomers began entering the labor market as young, inexperienced workers during the 1970s. Since young workers have relatively low human capital and lower productivity than experienced workers, this demographic shift contributed to the aggregate productivity slowdown. The increasing proportion of young workers with low human capital implied that human capital per worker slowed down, while the increasing proportion of young workers with fewer assets than the average worker meant that the stock of physical capital per worker also decelerated.^[32][33][31]

The productivity slowdown was not merely a statistical curiosity; it had profound implications for living standards and inflation. When productivity growth slows, the economy's capacity to produce goods and services without generating inflationary pressures diminishes. Real wages stagnated or declined for many workers during the 1970s despite nominal wage increases, as inflation outpaced income growth. This erosion of living standards contributed significantly to the economic misery felt by ordinary Americans during this period.^[22][1]

The Recession of 1973-1975

The stagflation crisis manifested in a severe recession that lasted from November 1973 to March 1975—the longest and deepest recession of the postwar period until that time. In terms of overall decline in output and rise in unemployment, the 1973-1975 recession was more severe than any of the five earlier postwar recessions. Real gross domestic product dropped nearly 7% during the recession, while industrial production fell 13%. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 2.3 million jobs were lost during the recession—a postwar record at the time.^{[21][34][35][36]}

Although the recession officially ended in March 1975, the unemployment rate did not peak for several months, reaching 9% in May 1975. This lag between the technical end of recession and the labor market recovery exemplified the "jobless recovery" phenomenon that would characterize future economic downturns. The recession's severity was partly attributable to a large reduction in inventory investment, which amplified the downturn but also contributed to the relative brevity of the decline in employment, since inventory movements are typically quickly reversed.^[34][35][21]

The 1973-1975 recession differed from earlier postwar recessions in a critical respect: inflation continued to rise even as the economy contracted. The CPI surged to 8.5% after price controls were lifted in mid-1973, then continued rising, reaching 12.3% by 1974. This behavior—inflation accelerating during a recession—was unprecedented and deeply perplexing to economists and policymakers trained in the Keynesian framework that predicted falling inflation during economic downturns.^{[36][25][19][34]}

The Friedman-Phelps Revolution and Rational Expectations

The inability of traditional Keynesian theory to explain or predict stagflation created an intellectual vacuum that was filled by two revolutionary theoretical developments: the natural rate hypothesis and rational expectations theory. Economists Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps, working independently in the late 1960s, challenged the notion of a stable long-run Phillips Curve trade-off. They argued that the true relationship was not between unemployment and inflation, but between unemployment and the change in inflation—and that this relationship was inherently temporary.^[37][38]

Friedman introduced the concept of the "natural rate of unemployment"—the unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation, determined by real factors such as the effectiveness of the labor market, the extent of competition or monopoly, and barriers or encouragements to working in various occupations. According to the natural rate hypothesis, unemployment could be pushed below this natural rate only temporarily, and only by producing accelerating inflation. Once workers and firms adjusted their inflation expectations upward, unemployment would return to the natural rate, but with higher inflation.^[39][38][37]

Friedman's 1968 American Economic Association Presidential Address proved prescient, anticipating the stagflation that would soon grip the economy. His argument that increasing the money supply would merely lead to a wage-inflation spiral without reducing unemployment in the long run directly contradicted the policy advice that guided the Fed during the 1960s. The experience of the 1970s, with its combination of high inflation and high unemployment, provided dramatic empirical support for the natural rate hypothesis.^{[7][40][38][41][42][37][1]}

Building on these foundations, economists Robert Lucas, Thomas Sargent, and Robert Barro developed the theory of rational expectations, which revolutionized macroeconomics in the 1970s and 1980s. The rational expectations hypothesis posits that individuals use all available information, including knowledge of government policies and historical data, to make optimal forecasts about the future. Rather than simply extrapolating from past trends, rational agents anticipate policy changes and adjust their behavior accordingly.^{[43][44][45][46]}

The implications for policy were profound and troubling. If people form expectations rationally, then systematic monetary policy—policy that follows a predictable rule—cannot affect real economic outcomes even in the short run. When the central bank announces an expansionary policy to reduce unemployment, rational agents anticipate the resulting inflation and immediately adjust their wage demands and price-setting behavior, negating the policy's real effects. Only unanticipated policy actions could have temporary real effects, but by definition, such actions cannot be relied upon as a systematic policy strategy.^{[44][45][46][47]}

The rational expectations revolution provided a coherent explanation for why the "stop-go" policies of the 1970s had failed so spectacularly. Repeated cycles of monetary expansion followed by contraction had taught the public to expect policy reversals, undermining the Fed's credibility and making it impossible to influence real economic outcomes without increasingly costly surprises. The stagflation of the 1970s was, in this view, a result of people having learned from their mistakes of the 1960s, when organized labor had failed to anticipate the consequences of expansionary policies and had accepted long-term wage contracts that proved inadequate as inflation accelerated.^[46][1][22]

The Volcker Disinflation and the End of Stagflation

The appointment of Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve Chairman in August 1979 marked a decisive turning point in the fight against stagflation. Volcker was determined to restore price stability, even at significant short-term economic cost. His appointment came at a moment of acute crisis: annual inflation was running at 9%, had risen by 3 percentage points over the previous 18 months, and showed every sign of accelerating further.^{[48][49][50][51][52][53]}

On October 6, 1979, Volcker announced a dramatic shift in monetary policy operating procedures. Rather than targeting interest rates directly, the Fed would focus on controlling the growth of monetary aggregates, allowing interest rates to fluctuate within a much wider band. This shift was designed to signal the Fed's unequivocal commitment to reducing money supply growth and bringing inflation under control, regardless of short-term consequences.^[50][54][48]

The federal funds rate, which had traded close to 12% before the October 6, 1979 announcement, jumped to 16% by late 1979, then soared to an unprecedented 20% in late 1980. By the first half of 1981, the rate approached 20% again as the Fed maintained its restrictive stance. Average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages spiked to near 20%, the highest on record, causing severe distress in housing and construction sectors.^{[49][54][52][48]}

The economic toll was severe. The U.S. economy entered recession in the third quarter of 1981 as high interest rates put pressure on sectors reliant on borrowing. Unemployment grew from 7.4% at the start of the recession to nearly 10% a year later, eventually peaking at 10.8% in November and December 1982—the highest rate since the Great Depression. The 1981-1982 recession exhibited the largest cumulative decline in employment and output since World War II. Volcker faced repeated calls from Congress to loosen monetary policy, but he maintained that failing to bring down long-run inflation expectations would result in "more serious economic circumstances over a much longer period of time".^{[51][52][53][34]}

The political pressure was intense. Farmers drove their tractors to the Fed's headquarters in Washington to protest higher interest rates, while car dealers mailed Volcker car keys of unsold vehicles in coffins. Critics vilified Volcker for harming the economy, arguing that the cure was worse than the disease. However, Volcker and his supporters on the Federal Open Market Committee viewed the restoration of Fed credibility for low inflation and the associated real cost of deliberate disinflation in 1981-1982 as necessary to prevent future recessions and inflation scares.^[55][49][51]

The persistence ultimately paid off. By October 1982, inflation had fallen to 5%, and long-run interest rates began to decline. The Fed allowed the federal funds rate to fall back to 9%, and unemployment declined quickly from its peak of nearly 11% at the end of 1982 to 8% one year later. Inflation continued to fall, reaching below 2% by 1986 and remaining low for decades thereafter. The Volcker disinflation demonstrated that determined monetary policy could break entrenched inflation and inflationary expectations, albeit at significant short-run cost.^{[52][53][49][51]}

Long-Term Consequences and Policy Lessons

The stagflation experience of the 1970s and the Volcker disinflation that ended it fundamentally reshaped macroeconomic theory and central banking practice for the next four decades. The most important lesson was the paramount importance of maintaining price stability and anchoring inflation expectations. The Federal Reserve learned that attempting to exploit a perceived Phillips Curve trade-off by tolerating inflation to achieve lower unemployment was ultimately self-defeating, as inflationary expectations would adjust and the trade-off would disappear.^{[4][56][57][7][14][52][3]}

In the decades following the Volcker disinflation, central banks around the world adopted explicit inflation targeting frameworks. These frameworks typically specify a numerical inflation target (often around 2% annually) and commit the central bank to achieving that target over the medium to long term. The Federal Reserve, while initially resisting formal inflation targeting, effectively adopted implicit inflation targeting under Chairman Alan Greenspan during the 1990s and early 2000s. In January 2012, the Fed made this commitment explicit by announcing a 2% inflation target for personal consumption expenditures.^[57][58]

Inflation targeting serves multiple purposes. First, it provides a clear nominal anchor for monetary policy, helping to stabilize inflation expectations. When the public believes the central bank is committed to a specific inflation target, inflation expectations become anchored at that level, making it easier for the central bank to achieve its goal. Second, explicit inflation targeting enhances central bank accountability and transparency, allowing the public and elected representatives to evaluate the central bank's performance against a clear standard. Third, a credible inflation target gives the central bank more flexibility to respond to short-term economic fluctuations, as temporary deviations from target will not unhinge expectations if the public believes the central bank remains committed to returning to target.^[58][59][57]

The stagflation experience also validated the importance of central bank independence and credibility. The Fed's repeated "stop-go" policies during the 1960s and 1970s, driven partly by political pressures to prioritize short-term employment gains over long-term price stability, had undermined its credibility and made inflation harder to control. Volcker's willingness to maintain tight monetary policy despite intense political pressure and severe recession demonstrated that credibility could be restored only through costly commitment. This lesson reinforced arguments for insulating central banks from short-term political pressures while maintaining appropriate democratic accountability.^{[53][51][52][57][58][1][22]}

The theoretical revolution sparked by stagflation—encompassing the natural rate hypothesis, rational expectations, and the subsequent development of New Keynesian economics—continues to provide the framework for modern monetary policy analysis. Contemporary central bankers routinely use models incorporating rational expectations and natural rates, concepts that emerged directly from attempts to understand the 1970s crisis. The modern Phillips Curve framework used by policymakers incorporates expectations, acknowledging that inflation is guided by three forces: expected inflation, the deviation of unemployment from its natural rate, and supply shocks.^{[60][43][44][57]}

Conclusion

The stagflation of the 1970s represents a defining episode in economic history, fundamentally altering our understanding of inflation dynamics, the limits of monetary policy, and the critical importance of expectations and credibility in macroeconomic outcomes. What began as an apparently stable trade-off between unemployment and inflation dissolved into a devastating combination of rising prices and economic stagnation that traditional policy frameworks could neither predict nor remedy.

The crisis emerged from a confluence of factors: expansionary monetary and fiscal policies during the 1960s that fueled underlying inflation, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, devastating oil price shocks that demonstrated the power of supply-side disruptions, wage and price controls that postponed and worsened inflation, and "stop-go" monetary policies that destroyed central bank credibility. The persistence of stagflation throughout much of the decade reflected the self-reinforcing dynamics of inflation expectations and wage-price spirals, compounded by productivity slowdowns and demographic shifts.

The intellectual revolution sparked by stagflation—Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps's natural rate hypothesis, the rational expectations theory of Robert Lucas and Thomas Sargent, and the subsequent emergence of New Keynesian synthesis—provided the theoretical foundation for understanding why the old consensus had failed. These insights demonstrated that there is no permanent trade-off between inflation and unemployment, that expectations matter fundamentally for policy effectiveness, and that central bank credibility is essential for macroeconomic stability.

Paul Volcker's painful but ultimately successful disinflation proved that determined monetary policy could break entrenched inflation, even at substantial short-term cost. The recession of 1981-1982, with unemployment reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression, demonstrated the real costs of lost credibility and the sacrifice necessary to restore it. However, this sacrifice created the foundation for the subsequent "Great Moderation" of the 1990s and early 2000s, when inflation remained low and stable while economic growth resumed.

The legacy of the 1970s stagflation extends far beyond the decade itself. The crisis permanently altered the practice of central banking, leading to the widespread adoption of inflation targeting frameworks, greater emphasis on central bank independence and transparency, and anchoring of inflation expectations at low levels. For policymakers facing today's economic challenges, the lessons of the 1970s remain salient: maintaining price stability and central bank credibility are paramount; supply shocks can create policy dilemmas that cannot be resolved through demand management alone; and once inflation expectations become unanchored, restoring price stability requires sustained commitment and can impose significant economic costs. The stagflation-inflation conundrum of the 1970s thus stands as both a cautionary tale and a testament to how economic crises can catalyze theoretical breakthroughs and institutional reforms that reshape policy for generations to come.

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Chapter 156 - The Stagnation-Inflation Conundrum of the 1970s

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