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Democratic politicians and progressive thought leaders are in love with price controls. A recent ATR op-ed for Townhall documents how price controls, rent control in particular, have consistently produced disastrous results.
Price controls are not new. They stretch back thousands of years, from the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices and the French Revolution’s Law of the Maximum to Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls. New York City’s experiment with rent control led some landlords to light their apartments on fire during the 1970s.
Time and again, price controls have produced shortages, economic distortions, and failed to reduce inflation.
Instead of attempting to control prices through legislative fiat, policymakers should adopt monetary restraints and supply-side deregulation.
To read the op-ed in full, click here.
