The Lessons from 1970s Price Controls

There has been a recent revival of interest in both voluntary and mandatory controls of prices to reduce the impact of inflation on low‐income groups. This article reviews the use of voluntary schemes of price restraint by the 1974–9 Labour government, in particular the ‘red triangle’ scheme in operation between February and August 1976. This was facilitated by more coherent representation of the retail sector. However, low‐income groups may be better served by income support than price restraint.