Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls

Selected Bibliography

Ackley, Gardner, “Roles and Limits of Incomes Policy,” Oriental Economist, Vol. 42, April 1974, pp. 18–24.

*American Enterprise Institute, A New Look at Inflation: Economic Policy in the Early 1970s, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1973. (Presents the diverse opinions of distinguished scholars on developments in the American economy since the institution of direct wage and price controls in August 1971.)

American Enterprise Institute, Essays on Indexation and Inflation, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1974.

(Authors such as William Fellner and Milton Friedman examine possible answers to the problem of inflation, rather than the traditional, but ineffective, wage-stop policies.)

*American Institute for Economic Research, The Failure of Price Controls, American Institute for Economic Research, Research Report, December 3, 1974.

(An examination of the most recent attempt at price controls which concludes that the controls failed to halt increases in prices.)

Anderson, John, “The Cost of Controls,” Ripon Forum, April 1, 1974.

Anderson, R. M., “Prospects of Success for Government Price-fixing in the United States,” Economic World, January 5, 1918 (NS Vol. 15).

Ashley, W. J., An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, Longmans, London, 1923–5.

Askin, A. and Kraft, J., Econometric Wage and Price Models: Assessing the Impact of the Economic Stabilization Program, New York, 1975.

*Backman, Jules, Rationing and Price Controls in Great Britain, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1943.

(Excellent, crisp, short survey of the effectiveness and deficiencies in the wartime control policies.)

Backman, Jules, The Price Control and Subsidy Program in Canada, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1943.

(Review of a particularly extensive network of controls.)

*Backman, Jules, Adventures in Price Fixing, Farrar and Rinehart, Menasha, Wisconsin, 1936.

(This excellent little book relates some case histories from a variety of countries in which price controls have been tried.)

Ballantine, A. A., “Prices According to Law,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1915.

Balogh, Thomas, Germany: An Experiment in ‘Planning by the ‘Free’ Price Mechanism, Blackwell, Oxford, 1950.

Barnes, H., “The Backside of Sweden’s Labour Policy,” Financial Times Scandinavian Newsletter, May 1976.

Bezanson, Anne, Prices and Inflation During the American Revolution, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951.

Bhatia, R, J. and Bouter, A. C., “A System of Governmental Wage Control— Experience of the Netherlands, 1945–60,” in IMF Staff Papers, Vol. VIII, (3), December 1961.

Blackaby, F. (ed.), An Incomes Policy for Britain, Heinemann, London, 1972.

*Blough, Roger M., “Minimizing the Effect of Controls,” Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 97, March 1974, pp. 39–42.

(Excerpted from a paper presented to the 26th annual meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association and the American Economic Association in New York, December 1973. The former chairman of the U.S. Steel Corporation argues against controls.)

Bodkin, Ronald G. and Lerner, Abba P., Two Lectures on the Wage-Price Problem, University of British Columbia, Department of Economics, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1974.

Boeckh, August, The Public Economy of the Athenians, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1857.

Bolles, Albert, The Financial History of the United States, Appleton & Co., New York, 1896.

Booth, Arch N., Wage-Price Controls: The Challenge to Learn from History, Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., Washington, D.C., 1975.

*Bourne, Henry, “Maximum Prices in France,” American Historical Review, October 1917.

*Bourne, Henry, “Food Control and Price-fixing in Revolutionary France,” Journal of Political Economy, February 1919.

Bowley, Arthur Lyon, Prices and Wages in the United Kingdom, 1914–1920, Oxford University Press, 1921.

(Well-documented and readable review of the wartime experience with controls.)

Bresciani-Turroni, C, The Economics of Inflation, 1931; English edition, Augustus Kelly, New York, 1968.

Brittan, Samuel, Capitalism and the Permissive Society, Macmillan, London, 1973.

Brittan, Samuel, Second Thoughts on Full Employment Policy, Centre for Policy Studies, London, 1975.

*Brittan, Samuel and Lilley, Peter, The Delusion of Incomes Policy, Temple Smith, London, 1977.

Brown, F., Soviet Trade Unionism and Labor Relations, Harvard University Press, 1966.

Brown, W. and Sisson, K., A Positive Incomes Policy, Fabian Society, London, 1976.

Buchanan, J., The Limits of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1975. Burns, A. R., Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, A. A. Knopf, New York, 1927.

Cagan, Phillip, The Hydra-Headed Monster—The Problem of Inflation in the United States, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1974.

Carlson, J. and Parkin, M., “Inflation Expectations,” Economica, May 1975.

Carr, Willard Z., Jr.; Heinke, Rex S.; Ryan, Michael D., “A Short Historical Perspective of Economic Controls in the United States,” Business Lawyer, Vol. 33, November 1977, pp. 3–28.

Chen, Huan-chang, The Economic Principles of Confucius and his School, Longmans, New York, 1911.

*Chin, Felix and Knight, Edward, Government Policy Relating to Wages and Prices, 1974: A Selected Bibliography, Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., 1976.

(Excellent and extensive bibliography on both sides of the issue.)

Conference Board Economic Forum, Inflation in the United States: Causes and Consequences, New York, 1974.

(“General View of Inflation,” by A. Greenspan; “Inflation and Monetary Policy,” by J. O’Leary; “Fiscal Policies and Inflation,” by M. Weidenbaum; “Wage and Price Policies,” by A. Rees; “Inflation and Free Enterprise,” by C. J. Grayson, Jr.)

Conquest, R., Industrial Workers in the USSR, New York, Praeger, 1967.

*Darby, M., “The US Economic Stabilisation Programme 1971–74,” in The Illusion of Price and Wage Control, Fraser Institute, Vancouver, 1976

Deutscher, Isaac, “Soviet Trade Unions,” Hyperion Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1973.

Donnithorne, Audry, “China’s Anti-inflationary Policy,” Three Banks Review, No. 103, September 1974, pp. 3–25.

Dorfman, G., Wage Politics in Britain, Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1973.

*The Economist, “Why Not Let It Alone?”, The Economist, London, Vol. 89, September 6, 1919.

Edgren, G., et al., “Wages, Growth and Distribution of Income,” Swedish Journal of Economics, September 1969.

Edwards, Chilperic, The Hammurabi Code and the Sinaitic Legislation, Ken-nikat Press, Port Washington, N.Y., 1904.

Erhard, Ludwig, Prosperity Through Competition, Praeger, New York, 1958.

Elvander, N., “Collective Bargaining and Incomes Policy in the Nordic Countries: A Comparative Analysis,” British Journal of Industrial Relations, November 1974.

Eucken, W., “On the Theory of the Centrally Administered Economy,” Economica, May 1948.

Fakiolas, R., “Problems of Labor Mobility in the USSR,” Soviet Studies, 14 July 1962.

Finley, M. I., The Ancient Economy, Chatto & Windus, London, 1973.

*Fisher, Antony, Fisher’s Concise History of Economic Bungling, Caroline House, Ottawa, I11., 1978.

(Published in England under the title Must History Repeat Itself?, London: Churchill Press, 1974).

Fisher, Irving, “A Statistical Relation Between Unemployment and Price Changes,” International Labour Review, June 1926.

Franck, Louis, French Price Control From Blum to Petain, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1942.

* Fraser Institute, The Illusion of Wage and Price Control, Vancouver, Canada, 1976.

*“Friedman, Milton (ed.), Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956.

*Friedman, Milton, “What Price Guideposts?” in Shultz, George P. and Aliber, Robert Z., Guidelines, Informal Controls and the Marketplace, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966.

*Friedman, Milton, The Optimum Quantity of Money, Aldine Press, Chicago, 1969.

*Friedman, Milton, Unemployment Versus Inflation, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1975.

*Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, A., A Monetary History of the United States 1867–1960, Princeton, 1963.

Fulton, Betty F., “Price Controls: An Elusive Panacea,” Wage-Price Law & Economics Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1977, pp. 41–45 and 47–48.

Galbraith, J. K., Money, Andre Deutsch, London, 1975.

Garrett, Paul Willard, Government Control Over Prices, Government Printing Office, for the War Trade Board and the War Industries Board, Washington D.C., 1920.

(Comprehensive review of the American experiences with controls during World War I.)

Ghali, Moheb A., “The Effect of Controls on Wages, Prices, and Strike Activity,” Journal of Economics and Business, Vol. 30, Fall 1977, pp. 23–30.

Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, London 1783–89.

Goodwin, C. (ed), Exhortation and Controls, Brookings Institution, Washington, 1975.

Gould, J. D., The Great Debasement, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970.

Gray, H. L., War Time Control of Industry, Macmillan, New York, 1918.

*Grayson, C. J., “The U.S. Economic Stabilisation Programme, 1971–74,” in The Illusion of Price and Wage Control, Fraser Institute, Vancouver, 1976.

Grayson, C, “Controls Are Not the Answer,” Challenge, Vol. 17, November-December 1974, pp. 9–12.

*Grayson, C., Confessions of a Price Controller, Dow-Jones, Irwin, New York, 1974.

Griffiths, Brian, Inflation, Weidenfeld, London, 1976.

Guillebaud, C., The Economic Recovery of Germany, 1933–38, Macmillan, London, 1939.

Hardy, Charles O., Wartime Control of Prices, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1940.

Harper, F. A., Stand-by Controls, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., 1953.

Harlow, Ralph, Economic Conditions in Massachusetts During the American Revolution, J. Wilson & Son, Cambridge, Mass., 1918.

*Hayek, F. A., The Constitution of Liberty, Routledge, London, 1960.

Hayek, F. A., Choice in Currency, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1975.

Hayek, F. A., The Mirage of Social Justice, Routledge, London, 1976.

*Hayek, F. A., A Tiger by the Tail, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1971. (Excellent series of essays and articles which testifies that “open” inflation [where one can see the rising prices] is better than “repressed” inflation [where the rises are disguised under a series of price and wage controls].)

Hensel, Struve and McClung, Richard, “Profit Limitation Controls Prior to the Present War,” Law and Contemporary Problems, Duke University, Autumn 1943.

Hicks, Sir John, A Theory of Economic History, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969.

Hirsch, Julius, Price Controlin the War Economy, Harper & Bros. Publishers, New York, 1943.

Howell, Ralph, M.P., “Low Pay and Taxation,” Low Pay Paper No. 8, Low Pay Unit, London, 1976.

*Hunter, Laurence C, “British Incomes Policy, 1972–1974,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 29, October 1975, pp. 67–84.

(This Scottish economist demonstrates that the policy of the British government under the Heath administration did not achieve its wage and price goals and he notes that other government policies were working at cross-purposes by producing inflation.)

*Hunter, Sir William Wilson, Annals of Rural Bengal, Smith, Elder, London, 1897.

Hutt, W. H., The Strike Threat System, Arlington House, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1973.

*Institute of Economic Affairs, Verdict on Rent Control, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1972.

(Highly recommended little book with contributions from many countries and many distinguished economists, such as F. W. Paish, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and Bertrand de Jouvenal.)

Institute of Economic Affairs, The Long Debate on Poverty, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1973.

Jacobstein, Meyer and Moulton, Harold G., Effects of the Defense Program on Prices, Wages and Profits, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1941.

Jay, Peter, Employment, Inflation and Politics, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1975.

*Jefferson, Michael, et al., Inflation, John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., London, 1977.

Jewkes, John, The New Ordeal by Planning, Macmillan, London, 1967.

Johnson, E. A. J., American Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century, Russell & Russell, New York, 1961.

Johnston, T., Collective Bargaining in Sweden, Allen & Unwin, London, 1962.

Jones, A. H. M., The Roman Economy, Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa, N.J., 1974.

Jones, A., The New Inflation, Andre Deutsch, London, 1973.

Joseph, Sir Keith, Bt., Reversing the Trend—a Critical Reappraisal of Conservative Economic and Social Policies, Barry Rose, London, 1975.

*Kent, Roland, “The Edict of Diocletian Fixing Maximum Prices,” The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1920.

(Objective review of Diocletian’s economic troubles and the results of his wage and price control legislation; includes the complete preamble to the Edict plus a sample of actual rates.)

Keynes, J. M., A Treatise on Money, Vol. 2, 1930, new edition, Macmillan, London, 1975.

Kirsch, L., Soviet Wages, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1972.

Kirzner, I., Competition and Entrepreneurship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973.

Kosters, M., Controls and Inflation—The Economic Stabilization Programme in Retrospect, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1975.

*Lacy, Mary G., Food Control During Forty-six Centuries, Address before the Agricultural Society, Washington, D.C., March 16,1922. First published in Scientific Monthly, June 1923, reprinted by Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Laidler, David, “The 1974 Report of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. The Control of Inflation and the Future of the International Monetary System,” American Economic Review, Vol. 64, September 1974. (Argues that wage and price controls failed because monetary policy was inconsistent with their success in the U.S. economy. In the international sphere, the author argues that the real issues involved in reforming the international monetary system concern the extent to which individual countries can be expected to coordinate their domestic stabilization plans.)

Lanzillotti, R., Phase II in Review: The Price Commission Experience, Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C., 1975.

Leites, Kussiel, Recent Economic Developments in Russia, Oxford University Press, New York, 1922.

*Lekachman, Robert, “The Case for Controls,” The New Republic, October 14, 1978, p. 18.

Levy, Jean-Philippe, The Economic Life of the Ancient World, University of Chicago, 1967.

(Insightful short economic history of Egypt, Greece and Rome, with analyses of various government regulations.)

*Lewis, David and Sharpe, Myron E., “The Great Debate on Wage-Price Controls,” Challenge, Vol. 17, January-February 1975, pp. 26–32.

Lipsey, R. and Parkin, M., “Incomes Policy: A Reappraisal,” Economica, May 1970.

Litman, Simon, Prices and Price Control in Great Britain and the United States During the World War, Oxford University Press, 1920.

Meiselman, David I., “In Defense of Floating Rates: U.S. Inflation Must Be Labelled ‘Made In The U.S.’ Rather Than ‘Imported’,” The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 1974.

*Meiselman, David I., “Worldwide Inflation: A Monetarist View,” in The Phenomenon of Worldwide Inflation, AEI, Washington, D.C., 1975.

Menderhausen, H., “Prices, Money and Distribution of Goods in Post-War Germany,” American Economic Review, June 1949.

Merlin, S., “Trends in German Economic Controls Since 1933,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1943.

Merritt, A. N., War Time Control of Distribution of Food, Macmillan, New York, 1920.

Mills, Daniel Q., Government, Labor and Inflation, Wage Stabilization in the United States, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1975.

*Mills, Daniel Q., “Some Lessons of Price Controls in 1971–73,” Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 6, Spring 1975, pp. 3–49.

(Very good review of the ineffectiveness of the Nixon controls and some useful theoretical comments on the nature and effect of price controls.)

Minchinton, W. E. (ed.),Wage Regulation in Pre-Industrial England, David & Charles, London, 1972. Mitchell, Daniel J. B., “Wage and Price Controls: Past and Future,” Pittsburgh Business Review, Vol. 46, Winter 1976, pp. 5–11.

Moulton, Harold G. and Schlotterbeck, Karl T., Should Price Control Be Retained?, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1945.

(Pamphlet which examines the need and value of continuing controls after the war effort.)

Nathan, Otto, The Nazi Economic System, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1944.

Olds, Irving S., The Price of Price Controls, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., 1952.

Otani, Ichiro, “Some Empirical Evidence on the Determinants of Wage and Price Movements in Japan, 1950–1973: a Survey,” International Monetary Fund Staff Papers, Vol. 22, July 1975.

Outhwaite, R. B., Inflation in Tudor and Early Stuart England, Macmillan, London, 1969.

Paulus, J. D., “Experience with Wage and Price Controls in the United States,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Paper presented at the eleventh meeting of Economists of Central Banks of the American Continent, Quito, Ecuador, November 1974.

*Pepper, G. and Wood, G. F., Too Much Money, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1976.

Phelps, E. S., “Phillips Curves, Expectations of Inflation and Optimal Unemployment of Time,” Economica, August 1967.

Phelps-Brown, E. H., “Guidelines for Growth and for Incomes in the United Kingdom,” in Shultz, G. P. and Aliber, R. Z. (eds.), Guidelines, Informal Controls, and the Market Place, University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Philip, A. J., Rations, Rationing and Food Control, Book World, London, 1918.

Phillips, A. W., “The Relationship Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wages in the UK, 1861–1957,” Economica, 1958, pp. 783–91. Reprinted in Inflation, Ball and Doyle (eds.), Penguin, London, 1969.

Postan, M. H., The Medieval Economy and Society, Weidenfeld, London, 1972.

Pounds, N. G. J., An Economic History of Medieval Europe, Longman, London, 1974.

Rasin, Alois, Financial Policy of Czechoslovakia During the 1st Year of its History, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New York, 1923.

Reinfeld, Fred, The History of Civil War Money, Sterling, New York, 1959.

*Reynolds, Alan, “The Case Against Wage and Price Control,” National Review, September 24, 1971.

Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth (Diamond Commission) HMSO London: Report No. 1, Initial Report, 1975; Report No. 2, Income from Companies, 1975; Report No. 3, Higher Incomes from Employment, 1976.

Rostovtseff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Oxford University Press, 1957.

Schiff, Eric, Incomes Policies Abroad, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1971/1972.

(Two volumes giving a clear and readable review of the incomes policies operating in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, West Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Canada. Informative and useful; the broad conclusion is that controls have not been made to work in any of those countries, although some have attained a measure of success with other policies.)

*Shenoy, Sudha (ed.), Wage-Price Control: Myth and Reality, The Centre for Independent Studies, Turramurra, Australia, 1978.

Shultz, George P. and Dam, Kenneth W., “Reflections on Wage and Price Controls,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 30, January 1977, pp. 139–151.

Shultz, George P. and Aliber, Robert Z., Guidelines, Informal Controls and the Marketplace, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966.

Simes, Dimitri K., “The Soviet Parallel Market,” in Survey, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1975.

*Skousen, Mark, Playing the Price Controls Game, Arlington House, New Rochelle, New York, 1977.

Smith, Lawrence B., “Canada’s Incomes Policy: An Economic Assessment,” Canadian Tax Journal, Vol. 24, January-February 1976, pp. 67–73.

*Stein, Herbert, “Waiting for Phase II,” The AEI Economist, October 1978.

Stein, Herbert with Benjamin Stein, On the Brink, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1977.

Sutch, W. B., Price Fixing in New Zealand, Columbia University Press, New York, 1932.

(Excellent book about the effects of New Zealand’s experiments with price controls during and after the First War. Many sectors of the economy are examined, but the single lesson is clear: the side-effects of controls are worse than the problem they are intended to cure.)

*Turin, S. P., “Market Prices and Controlled Prices of Food in Moscow,” The Royal Statistical Society Journal, London, May 1920.

Taylor, K. W., “Canadian Wartime Price Controls—1941–46,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, February 1947.

Ulman, Lloyd and Flanagan, Robert J., Wage Restraint: A Study of Incomes Policies in Western Europe, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971.

U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Income Policies in the United States: Historical Review and Some Issues, Washington, D.C., 1977, 80 pages (U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Background paper).

*Walker, Michael (ed.), Which Way Ahead: Canada After Wage and Price Control, The Fraser Institute, Vancouver, Canada, 1977.

Walters, A. A., Money in Boom and Slump, 3rd edition, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1971.

Webster, Pelatiah, Political Essays, J. Crukshank, Philadelphia, 1791.

(Webster is generally regarded as the first American economist of note; his works include a good many comments on the price and wage controls of his time.)

White, Andrew Dickson, Fiat Money Inflation in France, 1912, modern edition, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, 1959.

Whiteman, Charles H., “A New Investigation of the Impact of Wage and Price Controls,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review, Vol. 2, Spring 1978, pp. 2–8.

Wilkinson, H. L., State Regulation of Prices in Australia, Melville & Mullen, Melbourne, 1917.

(Good review of the early Australian experiences with controls, related in this “treatise on price fixing and state socialism.”)

Windmuller, J. P., Labor Relations in the Netherlands, Cornell University Press, 1969.

Wootton, B., Social Foundations of Wages Policy, Allen & Unwin, 1962.

Worswick, G. D. N. (ed.), The Concept and Measurement of Involuntary Unemployment, Allen & Unwin, 1976.

Yeager, Leland B., International Monetary Relations, Harper & Row, New York, 1966.

*Asterisk indicates an especially useful work.