So reports Michael Giberson at KP, based on a Master's thesis by Cale Wren Davis, supervised by Randy Rucker at Montana State. The thesis is here: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ENACTMENT OF ANTI-PRICE GOUGING LAWS.
I'm struck by how relatively recent anti price gouging laws are: 27 of the 31 were passed in the 1990s or 2000s, with the rest passed in 1979 (NY), 1983 (HI), 1986 (CT), and 1986 (MS).
The laws come into force when some kind of state of emergency has been declared, and most set a price ceiling at "pre-emergency prices," although some set a ceiling higher than that, the highest being 25% above pre-emergency prices.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
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2 comments:
The same thing struck me - how recent these price gouging laws are. I guess I assumed that they had been around since the New Deal or the Progressive Era or some earlier populist period.
Any reason to believe price gouging became more repugnant in the 1990s than earlier? Most analysis about unfair pricing seems to treat it as more or less an immutable fact of human nature, but maybe attitudes changes in some relevant way beginning in the late 1970s. It is a puzzle to me.
I think that that law against gouging is pretty good and more states should implemented because we need to protect our citizens and customers from greedy companies
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