Abstract Price Control is made necessary by the conditions which result from a War Economy. Nation's purchasing power increases at the same time the goods available for consumption and use decrease and a "gap" develops between the total expendable incomes and the total goods available in the community. More people are working than in normal times and more goods and services are being produced, but the major portion of these goods and services must be appropriated for military purposes. This gap, then, develops in civilian goods and services, individual incomes increase while the amount of goods available to be purchased becomes less and less. As the military and civilian demands for raw materials and labor increase costs go up and prices begin to rise. Allowed to run its course the "price-cost" inflationary spiral would envelop all sectors of the economy and would end in economic disaster. To combat the danger of inflation national price control has been established. Beginning under the authority of an executive order and operating primarily by means of voluntary agreements to keep prices down.
Charles W. Lamden (Fri,) studied this question.