Price-Fixing as seen by a Price-Fixer

Abstract

The three agencies that regulated prices, 205. — Differences in their methods, 206. — The Price-Fixing Committee, 209. — Commodities regulated by the committee, 209. — Ground for their selection; heavy government needs, 210. — Prices were fixed as maxima only, 214. — Gradual elaboration and extension, 214. — Cost of production as the basis, 216. — Marginal, or “bulk-line,” cost, and charts illustrating it, 218. — This basis of price-fixing justified by economic theory, 222. — Distinction between differences in cost based on physical causes and those based on human qualities, 222. — The real ground for stress on marginal cost was necessity of maintaining output, 228. — Special phases of some articles, lumber, cement, iron and steel, 229. — Proposals for an average or pooled price, 232. — Objections to this method, 233. — Conclusion, 238.