By Ryan Bourne, courtesy of the Cato Institute Cato scholars have written extensively on the damaging impacts of anti‐price gouging laws during emergencies. Traditionally, we worry about ongoing shortages of goods as a result of market price rises being prevented or suppressed. This consequence is likely to be more significant during COVID-19 than after very localized, […]
Tag: price controls
Global Voices Sound Alarm Against Price Controls for Medicines
Courtesy Austrian Economics Center The Austrian Economics Center (AEC) has expressed its concern with the intention of the US government to establish an International Reference Pricing (IRP) for medicines. Indeed, in recent years, the US has stayed on the drug pricing issue with key proposals in the form of executive orders by President […]
Washington Beyond the Headlines: Norquist Demolishes Price Controls (Again)
By Andy Blom, TES Washington Editor Fall suddenly hit the East Coast with colder temperatures, early nightfall, leaves all over the ground and dark skies (with or without rain) during the day. Just the time to stay inside and curl up with a hot beverage and some good policy. Luckily, we have just the […]
The Big Problem with Price Controls: Scarcity
By Edward Longe, American Consumer Institute One of the most pressing problems facing Americans and the U.S. healthcare system is the affordability of prescription drugs. An estimated 58 million Americans face medication insecurity and have “been unable to afford prescribed drugs at least once in the last 12 months.” The Organization for Economic Co-Operation […]
Trade Barriers Kill Innovation
Creating medicine is a complex and expensive business. While U.S. biopharmaceutical companies lead the world in drug development, international trade practices can stem the flow of innovation to new markets, depriving patients in need. Limited market penetration also means fewer resources to re-invest in the most successful engine for life-saving advancements on […]
Rent controls in London would backfire, like they always do
“Rent controls in London could bring ‘immense economic costs’ and increase ‘social segregation’, finds new report” Courtesy of the IEA Calls from politicians, including the Mayor of London, to introduce rent caps are misguided and would impose immense economic and social costs on the capital, according to a new report from Swedish think […]
Price Controls Consistently Fail Consumers: Why does Congress keep hoping that next time they will work?
By George Landrith, Frontiers of Freedom Government mandated price controls do not work. The intentions of Members of Congress when passing such government mandated price controls may or may not be good, but intentions are not the issue. Even if their intentions are good, the results will not be. That is the bottom […]
Importing Bad Ideas: Let’s Not
“Foreign reference pricing” is just price controls by the backdoor The world is full of bad ideas that self-interested parties sometimes try to bring to these shores, swearing up and down they’re actually good: karaoke, kale, Neti pots, the Yugo, the Macarena, Gerard Depardieu — the list goes on. To this hall of shame must […]
TES Weekly Update: Science Delivers, Politics Withers
Diabetes breakthrough shows there’s hope! Brexit mess shows… something else Our world remains a study in contrasts, and that’s about the most that can be said for it. On the one hand, a breakthrough in the clinical understanding of diabetes promises to quietly revolutionize the way we treat one of the world’s deadliest […]
Hey Congress, drug price controls are still a bad idea
Bad ideas have a way of sticking around , but fortunately there’s a home for them called Congress. The recently proposed legislation on drug prices is firmly in this category, relying on what are in effect government-imposed price controls, backed by the threat of […]