Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who in the early 1980s raised interest rates to historic highs and triggered a recession as the price of quashing double-digit inflation, died, according to his office.

He was 92.

Volcker took charge of the Fed in August 1979, when the U.S. economy was slipping into the grip of runaway inflation. Consumer prices skyrocketed 13% in 1979 and then by the same amount again in 1980.

Volcker worked relentlessly to bring prices under control. He pushed the Feds benchmark interest rate from 11% to a record 20% by late 1980 to try to slow the economys growth and shrink inflation.

Those high interest rates made it so expensive for people and companies to borrow that the economy weakened steadily. By January 1980, a recession had begun. It lasted six months. But then a deeper and more painful downturn took hold in July 1981. It endured for 18 months and sent unemployment up to 10.8% in November and December 1982, the highest level since the Great Depression.