In December, economist @IsabellaMWeber published an essay arguing that governments should consider whether targeted price controls should be part of the anti-inflation arsenal.
Her essay was greeted with contempt from a wide range of economists.
Weber's piece was in part sparked by a White House report comparing the ongoing situation to another episode of high growth and high inflation where the government imposed price controls: World War II and its immediate aftermath.
In 1941, FDR created the Office of Price Administration to monitor the prices of essential goods and enforce limits on what businesses could charge for them.
The US also imposed price controls during the Korean War and intermittently during the 1970s.
Plus, unlike other inflation-fighting tools, price controls have become politicized.
Even the World War II-era price controls — that are remembered more positively and patriotically — were subject to vociferous pushback from powerful business lobbies.
But the government doesn't take a completely hands-off approach to prices even in "normal" times.
They aren't economy-wide controls intended to suffocate the economy-wide impact of inflation, but they are price controls. And, Yablon says, they work.
Weber's idea may be getting another look as inflation persists, Yablon says.
Several critics have acknowledged a cornerstone of her argument: that prices may be set by corporate opportunism in addition to simple supply and demand.
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