Price controls against ‘profit-led inflation’: Lessons from the incomes policy debate
探讨为何部分经济学家支持和平时期的价格管制，认为利润在通胀动态中的自主作用是关键变量，并分析了收入政策文献中支持或反对价格管制的分歧。
Abstract Why do some economists support price controls in the face of inflation during peacetime? Our thesis is that, in the history of economic thought, understanding the role of profits in inflationary dynamics is the crucial variable. To demonstrate this, we investigate the extensive literature on incomes policy, insofar as much of the thinking on macroeconomic price control in peacetime is part of this literature. This corpus is crossed by a major schism: some advocate price and wage controls while others limit control to wages alone. We show that the defence of price controls is always based on the thesis that profits play an autonomous role in inflationary dynamics. Conversely, the advocates of an incomes policy reduced to wage controls see margins as mere transmission belts for excessive wage increases into prices. Price controls are thus rejected ex ante, even before any criticism of the consequences of their application.