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Definitions and Basics
Price Controls, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Governments have been trying to set maximum or minimum prices since ancient times. The Old Testament prohibited interest on loans, medieval governments fixed the maximum price of bread, and in recent years governments in the United States have fixed the price of gasoline, the rent on apartments in New York City, and the minimum wage, to name a few. At times governments go beyond fixing specific prices and try to control the general level of prices, as was done in the United States during both world wars, during the Korean War, and by the Nixon administration from 1971 to 1973....
Rent Control, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Rent control, like all other government-mandated price controls, is a law placing a maximum price, or a "rent ceiling," on what landlords may charge tenants. If it is to have any effect, the rent level must be set at a rate below that which would otherwise have prevailed....
Minimum Wages, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Minimum wage laws set legal minimums for the hourly wages paid to certain groups of workers. Invented in Australia and New Zealand with the admirable purpose of guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for unskilled workers, they have been widely acclaimed as both the bulwark protecting workers from exploitation by employers and as a major weapon in the war on poverty....
Agricultural Price Supports, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Most governments around the world intervene actively in the operation of their agricultural markets. The ways they intervene and the reasons they do so depend in large part on the wealth of the country....
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In the News and Examples
Policy Debate: Does an increase in the minimum wage result in a higher unemployment rate? by John Kane. From EconDebates Online.
Minimum wage laws in the U.S. were first introduced during the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. This period was characterized by falling output, falling prices, and falling employment. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 attempted to stop this downward spiral by encouraging the formation of trade association agreements that established price floors and minimum wages....
Introductory economics textbooks usually first introduce the minimum wage as an application of demand and supply analysis....
While minimum wage increases generally receive substantial public support, economists have generally relied on the above analysis to argue that such legislation will result in an increase in the unemployment rate in low-wage labor markets. In recent years, however, a series of studies by David Card, Alan B. Krueger, Lawrence F. Katz, and others have suggested that small to moderate increases in the minimum wage will have no adverse effects on unemployment (and may even lead to reduced unemployment)....
Rent controls in Mexico City: Tepito's Way, by Ibsen Martinez on Econlib
However, in Maracaibo, Medellín, Caracas, Colon, Guayaquil or San Salvador, as in many other Latin American cities, "barrio" almost invariably is shorthand for "populous, dangerous and smelly sinkhole on the fringe of civil society." There are, of course, other accepted though more complex meanings of the word. Consider Tepito, in downtown Mexico City....
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