For example in Vietnam, lunch can be bought for 50,000 VD and in South Korea, apartments can cost several MILLION Won. Why do some countries use such large denominations?
In: Economics
These currencies didn’t all start out that way.
For example the Japanese yen started out at parity with the US dollar (they were both copies of Spanish coins).
After going away from backing their currencies with precocious metal and undergoing some inflation and In Japans case losing a world war, a US dollar is now worth more than 100 yen.
Inflation makes a currency unit worth less, but if it isn’t too much or gets caught before it gets much worth it is easier to keep going with the now inflated value than to change things.
Turkey a few years ago did something like that they had had some inflation and now had ridiculously high numbered prices for every day items. They thought they had things under control though and enacted a currency reform that basically took of 6 zeros from everything 1.000.000 old lira became 1 new lira. That went for prices, wages savings etc so nobody lost anything but the prices too less space to write out.
Of course the lira has since undergone quite a bit more inflation (Putting you son in law in charge of finances of the country will do that).
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