Brian Albrecht Mentioned in the Financial Times on Fuel Price Controls
The Financial Times published a column examining the economic consequences of price ceilings, drawing on a working paper co-authored by ICLE Chief Economist Brian Albrecht. Read the full piece here.
Another unexpected problem, highlighted in a new working paper from economists Brian Albrecht, Alex Tabarrok, and Mark Whitmeyer, is that in 1974 gasoline was in short supply in the big cities but “more than abundant” in rural areas. As Albrecht and colleagues point out, this is a natural consequence of constraining the price system. Since fuel sells at the price cap everywhere, why bother to pay the additional cost of delivering it to an urban area? Only when the gas stations near oil refineries are drowning in more petrol than they can sell will the tankers head to more distant markets.