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Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. But now shopkeepers are upset and some basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy. The consumers responded by going to local retail shops on the first day of the new low prices to stock up on much needed basic good. how ever chaos has broken out between shop keepers and consumers as the shelves aare being cleaned of basic and even normal goods. The shopkeepers responded complaining that the weeks of low prices were unbaraible because of consumers being unhappy of even the lowest prices. The Ethiopian government defended it self that the price caps were needed to help the economic crises but 4 independant economist say that it would help the economy recover, but the government ignored them saying it would. Critcs warn that it will only help in the short term and only worsen the economy in the long term.

Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. However, shopkeepers are now upset and many basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy as the price controls have triggered chaos and tension in the local marketplace. 'Ceiling price have been put on items such as meat, bread, rice, sugar, powdered milk and cooking oil due to merchants taking advantage of global price hikes. The consumers have greatly benefitted yet storekeepers are unhappy, some products they bought before the price controls must now be sold below cost. In a free market economy, the preferred way of doing this is to increase the supply and increase competition. The Ethiopian government has been heavily criticized. Despite the upheaval, government officials are hoping their experiment in price-fixing will help to curb inflation. Recently released figures show the inflation rate jumped from 10.2 percent in November to 14.5 percent last month.

The Venezuelan Government has announced price controls on housing rents and with prices of medicines also underway. Many basic goods have already been under price controls as a result of inflation. The government has decided to put rent prices under control in order to protect consumers from high prices from landlords. Furthermore, with price controls on medicines, the government hopes to ensure that medicines will be accessible to all. Many producers have claimed that the price controls create a lack of supply. On the other hand, small and medium businesses seem to benefit from this through economies of scale. Lower prices allow producers to producer more for a cheaper price. However, government assured that the price control was throughly evaluated, so that it does not affect the supply. This relates directly to our topic of price control. In this case, government puts price controls in order to protect consumers from being exploited by producers. We can also notice that government intervention through price control does not always receive positive feedbacks from all parties.

In this article it explains why we, the consumer, are unable to influence gas prices. The article suggests 3 main reasons: 1) for oil companies it is more profitable to set a higher price and then let the price adjust to the demand. Simply, instead of letting the price adjust upwards, the price is set a higher level to let it adjust downwards. 2)The increasing price over the past two years has not created a drop in demand. Rather, the increasing price is accompanied by increasing demand. 3)For countries, the increase of price and demand are signs of prosperity, so a positive thing. This is an example of where it is hard to achiever a price equilibrium.

The recent drought in the pass summer in the Midwest has resulted in a decrease in crops. As a result, not only that restaurants have to struggle with high fuel costs and inactive economy, they also have to struggle with higher food costs with poorer quality. For example, a restaurant used to offer a bowl of pasta at $8.95. However, in the late August, the price jumped to $9.95. Eggs cost 18% more than they did a year earlier. Restaurants need to adjust menus, reduce portion sizes, even consider staff cuts, and also increase prices of their food in order to sustain their businesses.Experts predict that the overall food costs could possibly rise at 5% to 20%. In consequence, customers are less seen out in restaurants. This relates to price mechanism and equilibrium. Lower supply of food shifts the supply curve to the left. This means that the amount being supplied and demanded is different. Producers then must have to raise prices to adjust to higher costs of production. In consequence, amount being demanded at a new price is decreased, setting a new equilibrium price and quantity. This is a downside for the producers since they must increase price to adjust to higher food costs, but because of that, less is being demanded. The restaurants can either choose to lower their price to the original in order to attract customers or remain at the increased price. Either way, restaurants are still affected.

This article talk about the maximum price in New York and New Jersey after the sandy huracane. The government has set new laws in order to reduce the price for the neccessity products. However those laws are causing shortages in New York and New Jersey. Government-imposed price controls are making the disaster worse a week after Sandy hit shore. The producers can´t increase the prices for goods considered neccesarie for the consumers.The businesses aren´t allowed to raise their prices more than 10 percent within 30 days of a declared state of emergency. If the businesses increase above the maximum prices they will have to pay penalties. When there is a situation of scarcity (shortage) the people will try to buy the products in the black for a higher price. When high prices are prohibited from serving their function the result is a shortage where there are more buyers than sellers. Buyers still compete with other buyers to try to get the scarce gas, but because price competition is illegal their competition takes less beneficial forms.

Apple, in the past, has been notorious for setting high prices for its products. Its beautiful, expensive products were, however, sought after by many, yet with it's new product, the iPad mini, Apple is starting to make products that are not only highly-desirable, but at the same time, less-expensive. Apple products are price elastic because it is not a necessity and there are a myriad of substitutes. Apple is well aware of this information, and as a result, is lowering its prices to take advantage of price elasticity and the law of demand. As the title states, "Its all about price elasticity" and the iPad mini, with its reduced price will be competitive in the tablet market.

House prices in the UK have fallen for the third month in a row. Although the government has supported in mortgage borrowing, but the consumer's uncertainty surrounding the economy and their ability to afford the houses still causes the decrease in price in the market. The increase in demand is believed to be driven by seasonal factors compounded by the Olympics. It is believed that the house prices will continue to decrease slowly over the remainder of the year. There is also the first decline in supply in September after seven months of growth. I think this article fits perfectly under the topic of demand. The basic law states that as price falls, the quantity demanded of the product will usually increase. However, this does not fall under the basic law behind the demand curve, but it indicates that price of houses have fallen as a result of an increase in demand. The Europe's economy isn't doing very well at the moment and it causes more hesitant in how they consumers choose to spend their money. Price may be low, but they may choose to spend their money elsewhere. This does, however, support the supply law. As price falls, the quantity supplied is dropped. Suppliers wouldn't want to produce or supply to any products that isn't very well demanded.

This is an article which states the drug is now under the price control of the government. But according to it, there would be non-price control for medicine/drug options as well. It also says that the task force will serve as a framework for the new drug pricing policy. Since the government thinks that price controlling system doesn't really work for this kind of product, the drug makes are really looking forward to the new pricing policy.

The government of India has decided to remove the price control that it had earlier set. They have come to the conclusion that having a price control will make the drug companies not sell non profitable products.

The drought damaged the corn and soybean fields in the U.S. This caused drop in supplies in two crops to below year-earlier consumption levels for the first time since 1974. Prices have rose from 8.49 on August to $18 on September, but dropped again to $15.04 on October 3. This clearly shows both swift in supply, which set a new market equilibrium and price mechanism that adjusts the price of a product the new equilibrium. As the natural disaster swifted the supply curve, the price rose, but because the price was out of equilibrium price, the price dropped..

This article talk about the price of a gallon of 95 octane will increase 22 cents to $4.54. The price of 91 octane will increase 20 cents to $4.16. Diesel prices will go up 15 cents to $4.08. I´ve found this article and I think that is related to our actual topic aggregate supply because an increase in the price of the natural gas will have an impact on all industries, as oil is widely used in a lot of production processes. This will lead to a shift of the aggregate supply curve because the factors of production will be more expensive and at higher level price the producer will reduce the total amount of goods and services

This article talks about what should be the equilibrium price for a barrel of oil that benefits both the consumer and producer. The OPEC (Organization of petroleum exporting countries) talk about how high prices help the petroleum organization make investments in renewable fuels, but high priceces would hinder consumers as they now have less to spend on other products. The OPEC also talks about the effects of low prices where it would benefit the consumer but disadvantage the producer investing in renewable fuels. Therefore they have come to the conclusion that the price of a barrel of oil should be between 70-80 Dollars a barrel where bothe the producer and the consumer are happy. Saud Arabia ( the biggest exporter of oil) has agreed to the price of 75 dollars a barrel.

The article is written about a survey that was consucted in Australia to study the elasticity of food items. 15 food groups were surveyed and compared to each other. Milk, bread, fresh fruit and vegeatbles were seen as the most inelastic. Even when prices were increased people bought these items and could absorb the price increase easily. Normally sales would have increased with a drop in prices and decreased with a hike in prices but not in these cases. This clearly shows what we studied this week about how essential products are inelastic. The article also discusses how Aussies in comparison with the American and Canadian are more likely to give up meat in case of a price increase.

This article clearly shows the way price and taxes changes the demand on tobacco. It gives us a good description of that products. So after that article we can conclude that tobacco is not that price sensitive. And attempts of the government to reduce the number of consumers by increasing taxes did not really work. The conclusion of the article makes it really clear and easy to understand: "From the above discussion it is evident that the price of elasticity of value is an important measure of the changes that will occur when a tax is imposed on tobacco products, this value is important in that it can help in determining the appropriate tax value that should be imposed in order to reduce tobacco consumption. Taxes on the other hand should be fair and depending on the price elasticity value of tobacco products certain groups in the economy may be unfairly taxed whereby poor individuals in the economy may have a greater tax burden than higher income individuals."

This article clearly shows the way law of supply and demand works: "The best way to get oil prices down is to let them go up. It's happened many times before. For one reason or another, the demand for an item begins to heat up, driving its price higher." Thus, later people refuse to buy that items, so the prices go down. Also it says about another example of the law of supply and demand - housing. Seven years ago in Kazakhstan one house could cost about 1,000,000$, but then suddenly prices went down till about 400,000$. As they say in article that situations call bubble, when prices tumble just as quickly as they rose - if not faster. So I think, it is a good example for the chapter 2, where you can easily understand the way demand works and how it affects the prices.

This article talks about Ireland having the highest tobacco pricesses in Europe. The european commision is stating that the Irish government "is against EU law, distorts competition and keeps tobacco company profits high." The Irish government says that by keeping the prices high on tobacco its a good way to control smoking in the country and that its policy of high prices is with the World Wide Health Organisations regulation policy. what the European comission is trying to do acoording to this article is to encourage Ireland to take off the price controls. but they refused and are going to court against the EU regulations in Luxemburg.

The most recent searches by Rabobank say that commercial wine are at their lowest prices in over a decade. Many wine companies globally have had to tighten their supply. The tighter supply situation has eliminated much of the unsustainable competition that had been undercutting pricing. Markets that do not pay much for bulk wine will be outbid by markets that will pay higher prices. Europe will see decline in imports, and therefore also consumption of wine. I found this article interesting because there are quite a few non-price determinants shifting the supply curve and therefore changing the market price equilibrium. This article sums up many concepts that we have learned over the past 6 weeks.

It is an article about an increase of 3.7 percent in the price of goods purchased by K-State students from 2011 to 2012. In this article you read about elastic and inelastic products like gasoline or tuition. The Tuition has experimented the biggest increase, although the rate at which it increases has slowed a bit. This index created a decade ago by the KSU Economics Club, shows annual price changes in the items and services purchased by students in the Manhattan area. Items on the list include gasoline, groceries, tuition, beer, housing, textbooks and movies. Since 2002 the price increased in 85 percent. The Internet has suffered the biggest increase. The price of textbooks has decreased in 2011.The causes of inflation can often be linked to legislation and the actions of the government, which often have an indirect effect on the economy.

In 2009 there was a sharp appearance of the virus H1N1. South America was seriously affected by this virus. That led to sudden demand for vaccine. But some people usually try to get a profit from everything even from someone's misfortune. So that happened in South America too, prices for vaccines went up, but people needed a cure and some of them didn't have so much money for that. Therefore government was compelled to put price ceiling on the vaccine to make it available for infected. "(We) establish a commitment to not buy individually, above the prices set by the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) ... to prevent commercial interests from taking advantage of pandemic panic," she said, summarizing the conclusions of a meeting of the region's health ministries, called to map out a strategy to fight the pandemic.

Royal Mail has recently spiked their prices. This has resulted in a large decrease in number of stamps bought. A fall of 9% of mails have been sent with Royal Mail. They are certainly testing the elasticity of demand curve, but are they just putting themselves out of business? This article relates perfectly to price elasticity because this company, Royal Mail, is testing the elasticity of the market. They are taking a big risk, because if the elasticity is high, they may go right out of business. There are many free substitutes for sending mail, like E-Mail, Texting, and Social Networking. In my opinion, I think it is quite bizarre of Royal Mail to spike their price knowing that their demand has gone down. It will be interesting to see if they lower the prices again!

A trade group representing milk processors debuted an ad campaign Tuesday to eliminate New Deal-era federal price controls on unprocessed milk. The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) complains that the current price support system for dairy farmers dates back to 1937. Its ads call for "Big Government to get out of your milk." The main concern is that family with children are gradually paying more for milk hence the consumption of milk has dropped in the past years.