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Praise for Price-Gouging

John H. Cochrane · 20 Aug 2024 · grumpy-economist.com

4 korrents from this piece

John H. Cochrane did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Price gouging is wonderful for all the reasons that letting supply equals demand is wonderful. When there is a limited supply, then a sharply higher price directs that supply to those who really need it.
  2. Hoarding goes with price controls, anticipated empty shelves.
  3. But more deeply, if distributional consequences of a shock are important, then hand out cash. So long as everyone faces the same prices.
  4. We got inflation, but we did not get the devastation that would have been caused by price controls and rationing.