# Counting Zeros

> Banknote denominations as a global inflation proxy, 1900 to the present. From 49,898 catalogued types, the retained panel contains 17,205 types in 5,667 cells across 201 country series.

Primary S0 contains 1,899 cells across 193 country series; the headline median-country trend uses 1,480 cells from 102 countries that pass the usable-year and effective-anchor-span gate. Its 3.730-order result is a 124-year equivalent, not a pooled global path. Corpus snapshot taken 2026-08-21. Source catalogue: Banknote catalogue data courtesy of Numista (numista.com). https://en.numista.com.

Publication scope: The retained Numista permission authorizes research use with citation. Public bulk/data-feed and self-hosted-image scope remain pending written confirmation, so the Numista-derived type-level extract is withheld from this public build. Gold-source provenance and applicable sharing terms were cleared for this release under reference: core/gold-prices data package (github.com/datasets/gold-prices, data/annual.csv), ODC-PDDL-1.0; upstream World Bank Pink Sheet 1960- and Timothy Green 1833-1959. The gated gold-dependent mechanism tables are included; direct gold-ladder downloads remain omitted by this exporter.

## How to read this site programmatically

This is a hash-routed single-page app. Every route below is a URL *fragment* — it is never sent to the server, and the origin returns byte-identical HTML for `/`, `/#/countries` and `/#/country/hungary` alike. Do not crawl the hashes expecting distinct documents.

Fetch the JSON payloads instead. They are the same data the pages render, are stable, need no JavaScript, and are listed under Data below. Every one is served with Brotli and gzip sidecars.

One rule governs the whole project and is worth knowing before using any of it: **no research statistic is computed in the browser or in the build.** Every published research figure is produced by the Python pipeline and read straight out of these payloads. The browser only formats those values and reports transient interaction state such as the number of rows left by an active filter.

## Data

- [meta.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/meta.json): Corpus snapshot, the inclusion funnel (how 49,898 catalogued types become the analysis panel), and the headline signal figures. Start here.
- [countries.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/countries.json): Array of per-country summaries: slug, ISO codes, region, catalogued span, total orders of magnitude added, redenomination count, peak denomination and year, hyperinflation flag, coverage flag, inflation rank.
- [countries/<slug>.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/countries/<slug>.json): One country's publication-safe aggregate shard: year-by-year series, currency eras, events, and annual maxima. Per-type titles, catalogue URLs, and image URLs are withheld. Slug is the `country` field from countries.json.
- [events.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/events.json): Every historical event: country, year, end year, kind (history | redenomination | hyperinflation), category, label, source, plus kind-specific fields (peak monthly rate, redenomination factor, old/new currency).
- [pins.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/pins.json): Forty record-denomination citations: country, year, currency, value, log10, and the supporting Numista N# source link. No titles or image URLs.
- [heatmap.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/heatmap.json): Country x decade cells of signed log10 growth in the chained denomination index.
- [redenomination.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/redenomination.json): Per country: face-value against chained series, cumulative factor struck off (as log10), event count.
- [lenses.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/lenses.json): The analytical cuts: by decade, monetary regime, the 1971 break, region, event category, and hyperinflation vs. not.
- [materials.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/materials.json): Manifest of available downloads and the fail-closed Numista scope notice.
- [attribution.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/attribution.json): Catalogue research-use excerpt and scope caveat, external data sources, bibliography, and tooling credits.

## Papers

- [Short edition](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/downloads/papers/counting-zeros_short.pdf): 9 pages. A condensation for circulation.
- [Mid edition (journal article)](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/downloads/papers/counting-zeros_mid.pdf): 49 pages. Same argument and every caveat, fewer instances.
- [Full edition (thesis)](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/downloads/papers/counting-zeros_full.pdf): 78 pages. Everything: the construction record and all thirteen case studies.
- [Journal submission](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/materials): Reserved for the submitted manuscript. The current working editions are available above.

## Downloads

- [Pipeline and tests](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/code/counting-zeros-code.zip): the pipeline that produces everything above.
- [panel.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/panel.csv): The country-year panel: index_min/p50/p75/p90/p95/max, p50/p95/max chained indices, sample flags and break candidates — the table every headline number is computed from.
- [country_stats.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/country_stats.csv): Per country: regime-safe endpoint anchors, nullable observed/chained/total orders, orders per century, peak denomination and effective-span coverage verdict.
- [currency_eras.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/currency_eras.csv): Display spans per currency regime — the table behind each country page's currency-era section.
- [redenominations.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/redenominations.csv): Curated redenomination events after verification, with is_inflation_response, source and confidence per event.
- [historical_events.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/historical_events.csv): 1,445 dated events (wars, reforms, occupations, ...) used by the event study.
- [hyperinflations.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/hyperinflations.csv): 49 hyperinflation episodes across 43 countries, with confidence tiers.
- [lens_decade.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_decade.csv): Growth by decade — the #/lenses decade cut.
- [lens_regime.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_regime.csv): The nine-era regime arc, gold standard through the financial crisis.
- [lens_nixon.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_nixon.csv): The 1971 break: pre- vs post-gold-anchor growth.
- [lens_nixon_sensitivity.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_nixon_sensitivity.csv): 1971-break robustness: transition-band-excluded and break-moved-to-1973 windows.
- [lens_region.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_region.csv): The regional cut.
- [lens_control.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_control.csv): The pre-1900 falsification test — the proxy's negative control.
- [lens_country_group.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_country_group.csv): Hyperinflation-ever vs never, as a group comparison.
- [lens_case_studies.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_case_studies.csv): Per-case trajectories for the paper's featured countries.
- [lens_events.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/lens_events.csv): Denomination response by event category — the event study.
- [global_year.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/global_year.csv): Per year: descriptive raw-local distributions, the normalized median-country-slope trajectory, fixed-effect sensitivity fields and the world-record note.
- [signal_summary.json](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/signal_summary.json): Registered headline estimator, sample sizes, equivalent-span interpretation, decomposition and fixed-effect sensitivity.
- [sensitivity.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/sensitivity.csv): Index and sample sensitivity arms; unavailable S2 estimates remain null rather than being imputed.
- [leading_digits.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/leading_digits.csv): The {1,2,5} leading-digit distribution against Benford's law.
- [verification_log.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/verification_log.csv): Every change made during the two-pass redenomination-chain verification, with its source.
- [verification_summary.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/verification_summary.csv): The verification pass summarized: events checked, confirmed, corrected.
- [mechanism_events.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/mechanism_events.csv): Per reform: zeros removed against erosion accumulated since the previous one — does a reform close the gap?
- [mechanism_income_split.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/mechanism_income_split.csv): The never-responders split by income and cash intensity.
- [mechanism_classification.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/mechanism_classification.csv): The mechanical rule for the flat end: genuinely stable vs. latent or blind, published with its misassignments.
- [mechanism_indicators.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/study/mechanism_indicators.csv): The covariates the income/cash-intensity split uses.
- [external_prices.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/external/external_prices.csv): Source: World Bank Open Data — FP.CPI.TOTL (CPI) and PA.NUS.FCRF (official exchange rate).
- [fx_longrun_clio.csv](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/external/fx_longrun_clio.csv): Source: Clio Infra, “Exchange Rates to US Dollar” (Bosch 2015, http://hdl.handle.net/10622/KC0ZHV).
- [All of the above, one archive](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/data/downloads/data/counting-zeros-data.zip): 25 study artifacts and 2 external inputs, zipped, with detached provenance and terms notices.

## Pages

- [Home](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/): The study end to end, one section per destination below.
- [Map](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/map): Choropleth of peak denomination by country, and a year-by-year scrubber.
- [Countries](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/countries): The 193 primary-S0 country series, sortable and filterable.
- [Country](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/country/<slug>): One country: aggregate denomination ladder over time, currency eras, events, and annual maxima.
- [Timeline](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/timeline): Redenominations, hyperinflations, wars and regime changes at true time proportion.
- [Notes](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/notes): Forty record denominations with a compact fact card and source citation.
- [Heatmap](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/heatmap): Signed denomination growth by country and decade.
- [Lenses](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/lenses): The same signal cut by decade, monetary regime, region and preceding event.
- [Hyperinflation](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/hyperinflation): The episodes, with peak monthly rates where a source states one.
- [Redenomination](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/redenomination): Face value against the chained counterfactual, per country.
- [Materials](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/materials): Papers, pipeline code, derived datasets.
- [Attribution](https://counting-zeros.send-sats.com/#/attribution): Numista's retained research-use permission excerpt, unresolved public scope, external sources, literature and tooling.