History of Malagasy currency, and a brief attempt to analyze inflation[Histoire de la monnaie Malagasy, et une brève tentative d’analyse de l’inflation]

The question that should be asked in this article is to know the period during which inflation took place in Madagascar. It could also be asked in this article whether inflation could have existed, or not, in a country where an institute in charge of monetary issuance, or at least, an organization that deals with monetary regulation did not yet exist? This question arises for specialists in economic history, or for a possible expert, given that the objective of this writing is to detect the existence of a correlation between the use of money in a country with an archaic type economy, and a possible existence of inflation which is a phenomenon generated by the circulation of money. This being posed in the sense that Orthodox theory strives to demonstrate the fact that inflation only occurs in the presence of money and an issuing institute (monetary statistics, among other things for measuring inflation). To be able to answer these questions, it was necessary on our part to carry out a bibliographic review, to carry out surveys with the country's Monetary Issue Institute and at the end to divide this present article into two parts, the first of which will try to provide elements of explanation on the introduction of money within the country, and the extent of its power over the entire environment of exchanges, including its intrinsic value. In the second part, on the other hand, an attempt to create a single Malagasy currency will be developed. It would therefore be presented, in this part, some texts justifying the need for the creation of a specifically Malagasy currency, as well as the reaction of pre-colonial society to this project. Some developments in the Malagasy currency in response to the demand of the colonial economy also flesh out this part, and from these analyses, this study will draw a conclusion on a possible existence, or the opposite, of the phenomenon of price increases throughout the Malagasy economy from the time before and during colonization. In conclusion, inflation is a concept generally unknown to the monarchical era; it was an unsuitable concept because the economy of the time was not yet effectively monetized. On the other hand, the concept of inflation was established little by little when the Malagasy Nation began to adopt the European consumption mode. From the moment the country chose to found its own monetary issuing institute, the operation of the money market causes the variation of the currency circuit and automatically creates the needs of the market in terms of financing and refinancing of the economy. In this sense, the supply and demand of money sets the market price (interest rate) and favors or not the variation in the price level. It would therefore be necessary to advance, following this situation, that inflation is truly a monetary phenomenon.