price gouging

Public officials at all levels are pleading with consumers not to hoard basic household necessities like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning, and sanitizing products, or groceries. There are no problems…

As North Carolina faces societal upheaval from the novel coronavirus COVID-19, we’re given the comforting reminder that “We’re all in this together.” And we are: epidemiologists, government officials, business leaders,…

Why we oppose the state’s anti-“gouging” law enforcing pre-disaster pricing Laws that forbid price increases during extreme events have bad unintended consequences at the very worst of times. Precisely because…

RALEIGH – North Carolina hurts its consumers and taxpayers when it tries to control prices, according to the John Locke Foundation’s new Macon Series report. That includes so-called “price…

The state of North Carolina levies differing forms of price regulations on a range of what would otherwise be free-market activities. These include controls on wages, gasoline, interest rates, and an unspecified number of prices during disasters and states of emergency. The purpose of this paper is to explain why a free and flexible price system is so important to both social order and the efficient allocation of goods, services, and resources in a free society. Particular emphasis will be placed on North Carolina’s laws meant to regulate prices and the negative effect that these regulations have on both markets and the well-being of the citizens of the state.