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Price and Wage Controls in Four Wartime Periods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Hugh Rockoff
Hugh Rockoff
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
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Abstract

The debate over wage and price controls has taken a highly stylized form. Advocates of controls stress the direct effect on the obvious problem, inflation, whereas critics stress the side effects. This paper measures and compares the effects of controls during the four periods when controls have been used in the United States in the twentieth century. Although tentative conclusions are drawn concerning the price effects, the size of the administrative bureaucracies, and so forth, the clearest lesson, as usual, is that the issue warrants further investigation by economic historians because it is important, and because the historical record is surprisingly rich.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 381 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1981

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References

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