Printing Money Can’t Replace Real Savings

Between January 1970 and December 2020 on average changes in money supply preceded changes in real economic activity by fourteen months, as depicted by real gross domestic product (GDP). Based on this it is tempting to suggest that a strengthening in the growth rate of money supply will result in the strengthening of real economic growth. Conversely, a weakening in the growth rate of money supply will set in motion a decline in real economic activity.

Is Price Gouging a Problem?

Is price gouging wrong? For many, this practice does not exactly seem to be ethical. So, there is a moral angle here which suggests that raising prices of goods such as toilet paper and bottled water when a hurricane cuts off supply—and forces the market into a shortage—is not the most humane practice.

The economic angle, which is more important for policymaking, views price gouging as a regular supply-side response to a shock. The economics around this practice suggests that price gouging is not only reasonable, but it also serves many crucial economic purposes.

Lakshya Bharadwaj is a Don Lavoie Fellow at Mercatus Center and a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Ma