The War on Prices: How Popular Misconceptions about Inflation, Prices, and Value Create Bad Policy

by Bourne, Ryan A

• ISBN13: 9781952223860
• ISBN10: 1952223865
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-05-14
• Publisher: CATO INSTITUTE
• More Book Details

Summary

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? The War on Prices is an eye-opening book that answers all these burning questions and more, as top economists debunk popular misconceptions about inflation, prices, and value.

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, as we saw with the recent inflation. 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. 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 old insult goes that “economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” The War on Prices shows that good economists―and soon, you―can appreciate the value of unshackled market prices in delivering prosperity.

Author Biography

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. Bourne is the author of Economics in One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19 (2021) and editor of The War on Prices: How Popular Misconceptions about Inflation, Prices, and Value Create Bad Policy (2024). He has extensive broadcast and print media experience and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, BBC News, Sky News, and Fox Business Network.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The War on Prices, by Ryan Bourne

PART 1: INFLATION

Inflation: An Introduction, by Ryan Bourne

1. A Rising Product Price Doesn’t Cause Inflation, by Pierre Lemieux

2. There Is No Such Thing as a Wage-Price Spiral, by Bryan P. Cutsinger

3. Greed and Corporate Concentration Have Not Caused Inflation, by Brian C. Albrecht

4. Our Recent Inflation Wasn’t Wholly Driven by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the War in Ukraine, by David Beckworth

5. World War II Price Controls Were Not a “Total Success”, by Ryan Bourne

6. Modern Monetary Theory Has No Road Map for Dealing with Inflation, by Stan Veuger

PART 2: PRICES AND PRICE CONTROLS

Prices and Price Controls: An Introduction, by Ryan Bourne

7. Price Controls Have Been Disastrous throughout History, by Eamonn Butler

8. Under Rent Controls, Everyone Pays, by Jeffrey Miron and Pedro Aldighieri

9. Oil and Natural Gas Price Controls in the 1970s: Shortages and Redistribution, by Peter Van Doren

10. Interest Rate Caps Do Not Protect Vulnerable Consumers, by Nicholas Anthony

11.  Abolishing “Junk Fees” Would Be Junk Policy, by Ryan Bourne

12. Government Price Fixing Is the Rule in U.S. Health Care, by Michael F. Cannon

13. Anti-Price-Gouging Laws Entrench Shortages, by Ryan Bourne

14. The West Needs Water Markets, but Achieving That Is Tough, by Peter Van Doren

15. Minimum Wage Hikes Bring Tradeoffs beyond Pay and Jobs, by Jeffrey Clemens

16. Minimum Wages Are an Ineffective and Inefficient Anti-Poverty Tool, by Joseph J. Sabia

17. Price Ceilings of Zero Can Cause Deadly Shortages, by Peter Jaworski

PART 3: VALUE

Value: An Introduction, by Ryan Bourne

18. The Labor Theory of Value Is Mistaken, by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

19. Market Prices and Wages Do Not Reflect Ethical Value, by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

20. Market Prices Are Not Inherently Corrupting, by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

21. The Gender Pay Gap Isn’t about Workplace Discrimination, by Vanessa Brown Calder

22. The Pink Tax Is a Myth, by Ryan Bourne

23. High CEO Pay Is Not a Simple Story of Rent Seeking, by Alex Edmans and J. R. Shackleton

24.  Dynamic Pricing Can Benefit Consumers, by Liya Palagashvili

Notes  

Index