Inflationary recession vs Deflationary recession I heard the terms deflationary recession &amp; inflationary recession in a podcast and would like to understand what it means, what causes them and past examples.
Deflationary recession refers to a recession in which prices are falling. An example was the Great Depression. Below you have a graph of the yearly rate of change in CPI. A negative number means a fall in prices, i.e. deflation. Shaded areas mean recession period according to NBER.



Some argue that deflation was actually a factor contributing towards the great fall in GDP, because the Fed did not act soon enough, keeping the money supply low. The Gold Standard is partly to blame for this inaction of the Fed.

Inflationary recession is when a recession is accompanied with increasing prices. It is commonly known in Macroeconomics as Stagflation. That was the case on the 1973-1975 recession in the US. The graph below shows the yearly rate of change in CPI (again, shaded area represents a recession):



The latter happened mainly because of the 1973's oil crisis where the OAPEC (oil cartel) stopped selling oil to countries supporting Israel (including the US), rising its price.