Price controls: the case of alcohol

Despite the prominence of the Institute of Economic Affairs in the British Medical Journal's smear campaign against opponents of minimum pricing, we've never actually published much about it.* There was a chapter in Jamie Whyte's award-winning monograph Quack Policy, but nobody at the BMJ seems to have read it. Apart from that, nothing.

Last week, however, the IEA published a whole book about price controls and it includes a chapter about minimum pricing by yours truly. In it, I discuss the Sheffield model and the Canadian experience, as well as the likely impact on consumers and the legality of the policy under EU law.

You can download Flaws and Ceiling: Price Controls and the Damage They Cause as a PDF for free here.

(* The author of that piece was the third-rate journalist Jonathan Gornall who, like a third-rate footballer, is now plying his trade in Abu Dhabi. When not stoking the flames of anti-semitism in the Middle East, Gornall continues to write piss-poor hatchet jobs for the BMJ. Having done minimum pricing and sugar, Gornall turned his attention to plain packaging last week with an article so lame that no media reported it. Yet another effort is on its way, apparently. He's already been in touch with us about it.)

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