U.S. President Richard Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury, George Shultz, enacting Nixon's "New Economic Policy", lifted price controls that had begun in 1971 (part of the Nixon Shock). This lifting of price controls resulted in a rapid increase in prices. Price freezes were re-established five months later. Stagflation was eventually ended in the United States when the Federal Reserve under chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates to unusually high levels. This successfully ended high inflation but caused a recession that ended in the early 1980s.