Michael Giberson Way to go, Sen. Goss. Now grandma in Wilmington is gonna go three days without a flashlight ‘cuz you don’t understand basic economics. That is the conclusion of a post on Carolina Politics Online about a proposal by North Carolina state senator Steve Goss to not limit the state’s price gouging law to …
Price Gouging Policy As Rendered in Everyday Politics Read More »
Michael Giberson Geoffrey Rapp, (“Gouging: Terrorist Attacks, Hurricanes, and the Legal and Economic Aspects of Post-Disaster Price Regulation”, Kentucky Law Journal, 2006) expresses concern that fairness-based advocates of anti-price gouging laws and efficiency-minded opponents of such laws have such different approaches to the issue that there is “no way to reach a shared understanding of …
Anti-price Gouging Laws and Economic Efficiency: On Rapp and Skarbek on Price Gouging Read More »
Michael Giberson The April 2009 Business Ethics Quarterly includes an article on price gouging by Jeremy Snyder, a response from Matt Zwolinski, whose article on the topic was published a year ago, and a reply from Snyder. (Zwolinski’s earlier article on price gouging was discussed here last March. See related links below.) Snyder (“What’s the …
Price Gouging: Is It Wrong? Should It Be Against the Law? Read More »
Michael Giberson I’ve been reading several price gouging articles lately. One, by G. C. Rapp in the Kentucky Law Journal, (“Gouging: Terrorist Attacks, Hurricanes, and the Legal and Economic Aspects of Post-Disaster Price Regulation”, 2006) makes a relatively novel reach to behavioral economics to try to justify an efficiency claim for anti-price gouging laws. In …
Price Gouging and Behavioral Economics – More Work Needed Read More »
Michael Giberson The headline of this Q & A exchange in the Orlando Sentinel gets it right: “It’s only price gouging if you do it occasionally.” Under Florida’s price gouging law, “it is unlawful to sell essential commodities, which include food, ice, lumber and gasoline, for an amount that ‘grossly exceeds’ the average price for …
Price Gouging: One Way to Avoid the Law’s Reach is to Always Charge High Prices Read More »
Michael Giberson Writing with a calmness and patience not typically seen when economists write about price gouging, here is Geoff Styles, at Energy Outlook, Gas Lines and Bank Runs: …[W]ith a significant shortfall in deliveries along these pipelines, and US gasoline inventories that were already extremely low going into the storms, local prices should have …
Michael Giberson Robert Rapier at R-Squared Energy Blog noticed the EIA showing gasoline inventories at their lowest levels since 1967, and because consumption rates are higher now than in 1967, he pointed out that “days of supply” in inventory is probably at its lowest level ever. Rapier comments: Someone asked during a panel discussion at …
Supply Problem + Price Gouging Law = Rationing Gas by Running out Read More »
Michael Giberson Julio J. Rotemberg has a paper out about emotional reactions to prices and their policy implications. (“Behavioral aspects of price setting, and their policy implications.”) I think he is working on some interesting issues, but he comes up with such lousy “policy implications” at the end of the article that it ruined it …
Price Gouging Laws: Emotions, Economics, and Policy Read More »
Michael Giberson According to a year-long study of gasoline prices in the state of Washington, variations in prices across the state “are due to the cost of obtaining and transporting fuel to stations and local competition – not illegal price manipulation.” The state’s Attorney General commissioned the study, which was conducted by University of Washington …
No Gouging or Other Manipulation Found in Study of Washington State Gasoline Prices Read More »
Michael Giberson Usually, with annual Spring price increases, we hear the perennial allegations of gasoline price gouging from politicians. Despite all the talk about high gasoline prices, there hasn’t been a lot of talk about price gouging this year. The precise meaning of the term “price gouging” is sometimes hard to pin down, but a …
Price Gouging: At the Intersection of Emotions, Ethics, and Economics Read More »
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