Suppose there is a mild winter on the West Coast and a harsh winter on the East Coast. As a result of the weather, people on the East Coast will demand more home heating oil, bidding up the price. Under the price system, entrepreneurs will be...

In this video, we explore the fourth unintended consequence of price ceilings: deadweight loss. When prices are controlled, the mutually profitable gains from free trade cannot be fully realized, creating deadweight loss. With price controls, less...

In this video, we explore two more unintended consequences of price ceilings: long lines and search costs. What was it like waiting in long lines for gasoline back in the 1970s? Not fun. But why did this happen? When price ceilings were imposed on...

Price ceilings result in five major unintended consequences, and in this video we cover two of them. Using the supply and demand curve, we show how price ceilings lead to a shortage of goods and to low quality goods. Prices are signals that indicate to...

In 1971, President Nixon, in an effort to control inflation, declared price increases illegal. Because prices couldn’t increase, they began hitting a ceiling. With a price ceiling, buyers are unable to signal their increased demand by bidding prices up...

We’ve discussed how prices are signals that convey information about goods — but can prices also convey information about events and even predict the future? For instance, can we predict Middle East politics based on the price of oil futures? Or predict...

Speculation is often considered to be morally dubious. But, can speculation actually be useful to the market process? This video shows that speculation can actually smooth prices over time and increase welfare.

Speculators take resources from where they...

What does an increase in the price of oil tell us? What does it signal? And how do we adjust to that signal? The price of oil gives users of oil an incentive to respond — by using less oil or substituting lower-cost alternatives for oil.

The key here is...

In this video, we discuss how different markets are linked to one another. How does the price of oil affect the price of candy bars? When the price of oil increases, it is of course more expensive to transport goods, like candy bars. But there are other...

In this video, we discuss how markets link people and places all over the world. We’ll take a look at production and consumption markets and, importantly, the role that prices play in it all. Following up on our example of a rose, we take a look at...