“Here is your go‐to book on rising prices, price controls, and other government policies toward prices.” ― Tyler Cowen, director of the Mercatus Center and founder of Emergent Ventures
“...Grounded in the type of rigorous economics and empirics that are sadly missing in too much of the popular debate.” ― Jason Furman, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy, Harvard University
Was inflation’s recent spike exacerbated by corporate greed? Do rent controls really help the needy? Are U.S. health care prices set in a Wild West marketplace? Do women get paid less than men for the same work, and do they pay more than men for the same products?
Market prices are under siege. The war on prices is waged most obviously with damaging government price controls and the harmful effects of central bank monetary mismanagement. Yet these bad policies are propped up by widespread, misguided public beliefs about the causes of inflation, the effects of price controls, and the inherent morality of market prices.
Breaking down these complex issues into three distinct sections―inflation, price controls, and value―this book both sheds light on long‐standing contentions and brings economic theory and evidence to bear in today’s most contentious debates. It shows, for example, that:
The recent inflation was primarily caused by excessive macroeconomic stimulus, not corporate greed or “supply shocks” like the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
Politicians have deflected blame for inflation onto businesses, encouraging a “war on prices” through damaging proposals against “price gouging,” “junk fees,” and “shrinkflation.”
Federal, state, and local governments already cap rents, interest rates, prices amid emergencies, and more, delivering price controls that history shows create shortages, lower quality products, and black markets, all of which can harm low-income communities.
Both the “pink tax” (women paying more for similar products) and the “gender pay gap” (women being paid less than men, on average) overwhelmingly reflect choices families make, not business “sexism.”
Uber-style dynamic pricing, far from being something customers should fear, can be highly beneficial to consumers in a range of sectors.
Threaded through the book is a revealing truth: too many of us misunderstand the origin, role, and worth of market prices in our economy. The War on Prices is an eye‐opening book that answers all these burning questions and more, as top economists debunk popular misconceptions and demonstrate the value of unshackled market prices in delivering prosperity.
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Brian Albrecht, Pedro Aldighieri, Nicholas Anthony, David Beckworth, Eamonn Butler, Vanessa Brown Calder, Michael Cannon, Jeffrey Clemens, Bryan Cutsinger, Alex Edmans, Peter Jaworski, Pierre Lemieux, Deirdre McCloskey, Jeffrey Miron, Liya Palagashvili, Joseph Sabia, J. R. Shackleton, Peter Van Doren, and Stan Veuger
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Ryan A. Bourne occupies the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato Institute and is a columnist for The Times (UK). He has written on a variety of economic issues, including fiscal policy, inequality, price and wage controls, and infrastructure spending, and is the author of Economics in One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19. He has extensive broadcast and print media experience and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, BBC News, Sky News, and Fox Business Network.
