In the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Its GDP per capita exceeded GDP per capita of European countries such as France and Germany. After World War I, however, Argentina entered a phase of slow economic growth. The country suffered from bad policy making due to an ongoing political gridlock and was hit by adverse terms of trade. The outbreak of the oil crisis in the 1970s was the start of a long period of economic downturn, which culminated in the severe Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. As government spending could not be matched by taxation and financial markets borrowing, the authorities became dependent on inflation to finance the rising deficits. A sharp rise in inflation was the result.