Of course, many conditions across these episodes were very different, as were their end results in the falls of 1998 and 2008. Because of those differences, distress at LTCM was resolved by a private-sector solution with little discernible effect on the U.S. macroeconomy, while the fall of 2008 culminated in the Great Recession. But the commonalities across episodes illustrate similar data and conceptual gaps.
Furthermore, the higher price is compensating printers and other input suppliers, as producers in the market, for generally slower growth in production orders. My observation is that growth in banknote prices reflects, in part, a demand by central banks for banknotes to be printed on more durable substrates and for banknotes to have more sophisticated security features to protect against counterfeit attack.