The War on Prices: How Popular Misconceptions about Inflation, Prices, and Value Create Bad Policy
(By Ryan A. Bourne)
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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 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.
Other praise for The War on Prices:
"It is not just actual prices that have risen unusually rapidly in recent years—muddled thinking about prices has grown exponentially. I do not agree with the conclusion of every chapter of this volume, but I agree with most of them. And all of them are 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.
"The War on Prices is a fantastic book. It comprehensively makes the case that price controls do great harm, often to the people they are supposed to help. Particularly good are the chapters on rent controls, price controls on oil and natural gas, and so-called junk fees, which are really fees to solve problems that would exist without them. If the chapter on why we should have a free market in water were taken to heart, my fellow Californians and I would be much better off. Read this book and learn." David R. Henderson, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
"Prices make people angry. Most of the time we feel like we are paying too much for the goods or services we consume, or are being paid too little for the labor we sell. But prices are also a miracle, they make commerce possible and convey invaluable information. We mess with them at our peril. Ryan Bourne has edited a delightful collection of essays that stand up for what is perhaps the most hated, but most important of economic indicators--the market price." Allison Schrager, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute and columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.”
