The harsh Fed policy no doubt contributed to Mr. Carter’s re-election defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan; he had to campaign when interest rates were at their peak, and before the inflation fever had begun to break. Mr. Carter, in his memoirs, would offer a typically understated assessment: “Our trepidation about Volcker’s appointment was later justified.”

Unemployment rose to a peak of 10.8 percent in November 1982 — higher than at any point during the recession that began in 2008 — but by then the benefits of the Fed’s campaign were beginning to appear. Inflation fell below 4 percent in 1983, and Mr. Volcker’s critics were soon drowned out by a burgeoning chorus of admirers.

Some economists continued to argue that the Fed could have brought inflation under control more gently. Alan Greenspan, Mr. Volcker’s successor as Fed chairman, later described the policy as an excess of necessary medicine, although he added that it had been preferable to not doing enough.

In retrospect, it has also become clear that the developed world was on the cusp of an era of declining inflation, arriving as a result of the globalization of manufacturing and capital markets.

But Mr. Volcker’s triumph was undeniable: Inflation has remained under control ever since.

“Paul was as stubborn as he was tall,” Mr. Carter said in a statement on Monday morning, “and although some of his policies as Fed chairman were politically costly, they were the right thing to do. His strong and intelligent guidance helped to curb petroleum-driven inflation, easing a strain on all Americans’ budgets.”

President Reagan appointed Mr. Volcker to a second term as board chairman in 1983. But the relationship soon soured. Mr. Volcker was increasingly vocal in his criticism of the federal government’s growing deficits and reliance on foreign investors. In his austere view, there were no shortcuts to economic growth. The government needed budget discipline as well as low inflation.

The White House, for its part, grew increasingly unhappy with Mr. Volcker’s focus on inflation. In the summer of 1984, as Reagan campaigned for re-election, Mr. Volcker was summoned to meet the president at the White House. Mr. Volcker recounts in his memoirs, published in October 2018, that Reagan sat silently while his chief of staff, James A. Baker III, delivered a blunt message: “The president is ordering you not to raise interest rates before the election.”