The War on Prices: How Popular Misconceptions about Inflation, Prices, and Value Create Bad Policy

Was inflation's recent spike exacerbated by corporate greed? Do rent controls really help the needy? Are U.S. health care prices set in a wild west marketplace? Do women get paid less than men for the same work, and pay more than men for the same products? The War on Prices is an eye-opening book that peels back the curtain on all these burning questions and more, as top economists debunk popular misconceptions about inflation, prices, and value.

Market prices are under siege. The war on prices is waged most obviously with damaging government price controls and the harmful effects of central bank monetary mismanagement. Yet these bad policies are propped up by widespread, misguided beliefs about inflation's causes, price controls' effects, and the morality of market prices among the public.

Breaking down these complex issues into three distinct sections--inflation, price controls, and value--this book both sheds light on longstanding contentions and brings economic theory and evidence to bear in today's contentious debates. Threaded through the book is a revealing truth: too many of us misunderstand the origin, role, and worth of prices in our economy. The old insult goes that "economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing." This book shows that good economists--and soon, you--can appreciate the value of market prices in keeping our economy humming.