Are West Virginia “outsiders” more likely to be accused of price gouging?
From the March 8, 2014, Charleston Gazette, “Morrisey accused of discrimination in price gouging response“:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. –A Putnam County storeowner accused of price gouging bottled water during the water crisis says Attorney General Patrick Morrisey discriminated against him because he is Lebanese, questioned him unethically and illegally leaked the charge to the media before informing him of it.
On Feb. 14, Morrisey filed suit in Putnam Circuit Court alleging that Achraf Assi’s convenience stores, Hurricane-based Mid Valley Mart LLC, unfairly raised the price of Tyler Mountain Spring Water from $1.59 a gallon to $3.39 a gallon the day after the Jan. 9 chemical leak that contaminated the region’s drinking water.
Morrisey alleged that Assi, who owns the two stores that allegedly sold water at inflated prices, kept the prices higher for a week following the chemical leak.
In this news report the West Virginia Attorney General refers to alleged price gougers as “bad apples.”
The attorney general’s office reported over 150 calls concerning prices during the water emergency and documented 74 cases of increased prices on water and other goods. As of late February, the AG’s office reported issuing six subpoenas and 15 cease and desist letters. Only one price gouging case has been filed subsequent to the water emergency.
So far as I am aware, this is the first time I’ve seen claimed that price gouging laws have been implemented in a discriminatory fashion.
In 2012 I suggested the possibility that price gouging laws could be applied in discriminatory fashion (here and here). In brief, my claim was (1) the laws typically grant some discretion to the state, and any discretion exercised was unlikely to favor “outsider” groups; and (2) enforcement is almost always triggered by consumer complaint and so gives any consumer bias a role in anti-price gouging law enforcement. I’ve also speculated that “outsider” merchants may be more likely to raise prices in response to emergencies, but know of no research on that possibility.
I would certainly expect the variance in outsider merchants’ price change would be greater (i.e they would either under-adjust to a quick market change to avoid invoking the wrath of locals, or they would “over”-adjust since the don’t have as much social capital ballast).
On the consumer side, I would expect that same social capital ballast to reduce their outrage when an insider merchant increases prices (“after all, Larry’s facing a hard time too…”). This is sort of the darker side of Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Price discrimination (selling scarce water for more, to everyone) is better than racial discrimination 🙂