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

by Ryan Bourne (Editor)

Overview

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 pay more than men for the same products? The War on Prices is an eye-opening book that peels back the curtain on 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. Yet these bad policies are propped up by widespread, misguided beliefs about inflation's causes, price controls' effects, and the morality of market prices among the public.

Breaking down these complex issues into three distinct sections—inflation, price controls, and value—this book both sheds light on longstanding contentions and brings economic theory and evidence to bear in today's contentious debates. Threaded through the book is a revealing truth: too many of us misunderstand the origin, role, and worth of prices in our economy. The old insult goes that “economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” This book shows that good economists—and soon, you—can appreciate the value of market prices in keeping our economy humming.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781952223860
Publisher:	Cato Institute
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Pages:	260
Sales rank:	49,585
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ryan Bourne occupies the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato Institute and is the author of Economics In One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19 (2021). He has written on numerous economic issues, including fiscal policy, inequality, minimum wages, infrastructure spending, the cost of living and rent control. Before joining Cato, Bourne was head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

SECTION 1: Inflation Introduction to inflation, by Ryan Bourne Chapter 1: A rising product price doesn’t cause “inflation,” by Pierre Lemieux Chapter 2: Wage-price spirals do not cause inflation, by Bryan Cutsinger Chapter 3: Greed and corporate concentration do not cause inflation, by Brian Albrecht Chapter 4: The recent inflation was not caused just by the pandemic and Ukraine war, by David Beckworth Chapter 5: World War II-style price controls were not a “total success,” by Ryan Bourne Chapter 6: MMT has inadequate answers for addressing inflation, by Stan Veuger SECTION 2: Price Controls Introduction to price controls, by Ryan Bourne Chapter 7: Price controls have failed throughout history, by Eamonn Butler Chapter 8: Rent controls are not good for the poor, by Jeffrey Miron and Pedro Braga Aldighieri Soares Chapter 9: Oil and gas price caps can't mitigate supply shocks, by Peter Van Doren Chapter 10: Credit interest caps do not protect vulnerable consumers, by Nick Anthony Chapter 11: Abolishing junk fees is junk policy, by Ryan Bourne Chapter 12: Community rating price controls make healthcare worse, by Michael Cannon Chapter 13: Anti-price gouging laws guarantee shortages, by Ryan Bourne Chapter 14: Water shortages are caused by the absence of market prices, by Peter Van Doren Chapter 15: The minimum wage is not a well-targeted anti-poverty tool, by Joseph Sabia Chapter 16: The minimum wage is not a simple trade-off between pay and jobs, by Jeffrey Clemens Chapter 17: The lack of kidney and plasma markets kills patients, by Peter Jaworski SECTION 3: Prices, Value and Morality Introduction to prices and value, by Ryan Bourne Chapter 18: Prices and wages do not reflect dessert or social value, by Deirdre McCloskey Chapter 19: The labor theory of value is mistaken, by Deirdre McClsokey Chapter 20: Prices are not inherently corrupting, by Deirdre McCloskey Chapter 21: Gender pay gaps are not a result of discrimination, by Vanessa Brown Calder Chapter 22: Market pricing is not “sexist,” by Ryan Bourne Chapter 23: There’s a rationale for rising CEO pay, by Alex Edmans and Len Shackleton Chapter 24: Dynamic pricing doesn't just reflect paying more for the "same" service, by Liya Palagashvili