Austrian town officials in Wörgl printed their own localized currency in 1932 that was designed to lose one percent of its value every month, forcing residents to spend it immediately rather than hoarding it.

A closer look

Austrian town officials in Wörgl printed their own localized currency in 1932 that was designed to lose one percent of its value every month, forcing residents to spend it immediately rather than hoarding it. This aggressively depreciating money successfully skyrocketed local commerce, funded massive public works projects, and almost instantly cured the town's severe unemployment crisis during the Great Depression. Naturally, the Austrian central bank panicked at the sight of a functional local economy they could not exploit, so they legally banned the magical shrinking money and forced everyone back into crippling poverty!