Kostet Nutella tatsächlich überall das Gleiche? Dass Lebensmittelpreise überall bis auf den Cent identisch sind, behauptete jedenfalls das Handelsblatt – unter Bezug einer fragwürdigen Studie.
With her criticism of hasty interest rate hikes to combat inflation and her sympathy for strategically used, targeted price controls, she upset some media and economists. Isabella M. Weber, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, describes in a guest article in Handelsblatt on May 5, 2023, what she experienced when she expressed her opinion in the “Guardian” in 2021: strong counter-arguments even from liberal economists; students at the University of Chicago would have received an exam question about what a “real economist” would say about price controls; for her critics, the right of a company to set any price the market will bear is inviolable.
According to her, governments across Europe have already decided on certain forms of price control. In a world with overlapping emergencies – she mentions climate change, pandemic, geopolitical tensions – further shocks are to be expected, for which political decision-makers must be prepared. According to Weber, it is necessary to react before price shocks again cause major social and economic damage.
Recommendation:
You can read the interesting guest article by the economist in full on handelsblatt.de via the following link:
https://www.handelsblatt.com/meinung/gastbeitraege/gastkommentar-warum-preiskontrollen-sinnvoll-sein-koennen-/29122874.html
Pricing specialist Prof. Hans-Christian Riekhof comments: “Price controls do not really fit with a market-oriented policy. When the meaningfulness of price controls is then considered because surprisingly high profits are made in some markets, one can be very curious about the justification for price controls.”
What he believes is missing in Isabella Weber’s Handelsblatt article are terms like oligopoly, cartel office or antitrust law as well as market failure or the internalization of external effects. “Further explanations are needed here as to why ‘inappropriately’ high profits arise from the perspective of economic theory and which institutions may not have been effective here. Especially ecological issues such as the price development for fossil and non-fossil fuels require a more detailed economic analysis”, says Riekhof.
Marie-Christine Ostermann advocates in the Handelsblatt of 9.7.2021 in a guest article for more visibility of women in the (media) public: a very exciting perspective in a long-standing debate.
Visibility is in an economy of attention, as described by Georg Franck in his book of the same name, an important currency that is rarely so clearly addressed. Marie-Christine Ostermann considers the psychological dimension of the topic (who has too many self-doubts and why and shies away from too much attention, who shies away from the rough tone on some platforms), and she also names possible “costs” of high personal visibility.
And she looks at the differences in attention that women and men receive in the traditional media. But what absolutely needs to be added is the attention in social media, which women and men strive for and which their shared contributions receive. Here, other laws apply for achieving attention. No editorial team and no curator have a more or less secret agenda when it comes to likes and followers – a topic that would be very accessible to empirical research.
Links:
Guest contribution in Handelsblatt (Website):
https://www.handelsblatt.com/meinung/gastbeitraege/gastkommentar-ein-plaedoyer-fuer-die-sichtbarkeit-von-frauen/27399210.html
Guest contribution in Handelsblatt (pdf):
Women must become more visible
Photo/Screenshot: Handelsblatt
