IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/che/ireepp/v4y2005i2p73-86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Market Forces and Price Ceilings: A Classroom Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Jamie Brown Kruse

    (East Carolina University)

  • Ozlem Ozdemir

    (Yeditepe University)

  • Mark A. Thompson

    (Stephen F. Austin State University)

Abstract

The effect of price controls on competitive equilibrium is a standard topic in many undergraduate economics courses. This classroom experiment demonstrates the effect of rent control (price ceilings) on the market for apartments. As participants in the experiment, students experience the effect of a price ceiling as buyers (renters) and sellers (landlords). The classroom-posted offer market exhibits a shortage under a binding price ceiling. Further, we explore a secondary response to rent control. When given the opportunity, landlords lower the quality of the apartments by reducing maintenance expenditures under the price ceiling, thus moving the market back to equilibrium. Since many students are themselves renters, they should relate to changes in quality due to lower maintenance by landlords. This experiment will stimulate discussion on market forces and on public policy aimed at restricting prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamie Brown Kruse & Ozlem Ozdemir & Mark A. Thompson, 2005. "Market Forces and Price Ceilings: A Classroom Experiment," International Review of Economic Education, Economics Network, University of Bristol, vol. 4(2), pages 73-86.
    • Handle: RePEc:che:ireepp:v:4:y:2005:i:2:p:73-86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree/v4n2/kruse.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 923-955, December.
    2. Isaac, R Mark & Plott, Charles R, 1981. "Price Controls and the Behavior of Auction Markets: An Experimental Examination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 448-459, June.
    3. Smith, Vernon L & Williams, Arlington W, 1981. "On Nonbinding Price Controls in a Competitive Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 467-474, June.
    4. Gyourko, Joseph & Linneman, Peter, 1990. "Rent controls and rental housing quality: A note on the effects of New York City's old controls," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 398-409, May.
    5. Brown Kruse, Jamie & Thompson, Mark A., 2001. "A comparison of salient rewards in experiments: money and class points," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 113-117, December.
    6. Charles A. Holt, 1999. "Teaching Economics with Classroom Experiments: A Symposium," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 603-610, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Weisman Dennis L. & Sanders Shane D. & Moundigbaye Mantobaye, 2012. "An Instructional Exercise in Price Controls: Product Quality, Misallocation, and Public Policy," Journal of Industrial Organization Education, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    2. Grace Finley & Charles Holt & Emily Snow, 2019. "The welfare costs of price controls and rent seeking in a class experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(3), pages 753-771, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy N. Cason & John K. Stranlund & Frans P. de Vries, 2022. "Investment Incentives in Tradable Emissions Markets with Price Floors Approach," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1331, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    2. Martin Dufwenberg & Uri Gneezy & Jacob Goeree & Rosemarie Nagel, 2007. "Price floors and competition," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(1), pages 211-224, October.
    3. Duffy, John, 2006. "Agent-Based Models and Human Subject Experiments," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 19, pages 949-1011, Elsevier.
    4. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2003. "Vernon Smith's Insomnia and the Dawn of Economics as Experimental Science," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(2), pages 181-205, June.
    5. Grace Finley & Charles Holt & Emily Snow, 2019. "The welfare costs of price controls and rent seeking in a class experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(3), pages 753-771, September.
    6. Steffen Huck & Gabriele K. Ruchala & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2007. "Pricing and Trust," Discussion Papers 07-04, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. Stranlund, John K. & Murphy, James J. & Spraggon, John M., 2014. "Price controls and banking in emissions trading: An experimental evaluation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 71-86.
    8. D.J. Butler, 1990. "Experimental Techniques in Economics: Some lessons to date," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 90-22, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    9. Stocking, Andrew, 2012. "Unintended consequences of price controls: An application to allowance markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 120-136.
    10. Steffen Huck & Gabriele K. Lünser & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2016. "Price competition and reputation in markets for experience goods: an experimental study," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(1), pages 99-117, February.
    11. Kujal, Praveen, 2008. "Quantitative Restrictions in Experimental Posted-offer Markets," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 28, pages 234-241, Elsevier.
    12. Ackert, Lucy F. & Church, Bryan & Jayaraman, Narayanan, 2001. "An experimental study of circuit breakers: The effects of mandated market closures and temporary halts on market behavior," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 185-208, April.
    13. Pavlo Prokopovych & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2022. "On nondegenerate equilibria of double auctions with several buyers and a price floor," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(2), pages 625-654, April.
    14. Bottino, Eleonora & García-Muñoz, Teresa & Goddio, Cintia & Kujal, Praveen, 2016. "What is a fair wage? Reference points, entitlements and gift exchange," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 125-135.
    15. Gode, Dhananjay (Dan) K. & Sunder, Shyam, 2004. "Double auction dynamics: structural effects of non-binding price controls," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 1707-1731, July.
    16. Giuseppe Attanasi & Kene Boun My & Andrea Guido & Mathieu Lefebvre, 2021. "Controlling monopoly power in a double‐auction market experiment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(5), pages 1074-1101, October.
    17. Hans‐Theo Normann & Roberto Ricciuti, 2009. "Laboratory Experiments For Economic Policy Making," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 407-432, July.
    18. David F. Perkis & Timothy N. Cason & Wallace E. Tyner, 2016. "An Experimental Investigation of Hard and Soft Price Ceilings in Emissions Permit Markets," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(4), pages 703-718, April.
    19. Ross M. Miller, 2012. "The Effect Of Boundary Conditions On Efficiency And Pricing In Double‐Auction Markets With Zero‐Intelligence Agents," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 179-188, July.
    20. Christoph Engel, 2007. "The Cognitive Effect of a Minimum Wage. Comment," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(1), pages 52-55, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:che:ireepp:v:4:y:2005:i:2:p:73-86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Poulter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.