February 25, 2025 | 12:00 pm - 12:30 pm ET 

Webinars

MSI Webinar: Price-Gouging Regulation in Response to Crisis: Causal Effects and Policy Implications

Price gouging regulations (PGR) help keep essential goods—like medical supplies and groceries—affordable during crises. During COVID-19, PGR was widely used to prevent extreme price hikes, but there’s little guidance on how to design these policies for the best outcomes.

 

This talk explores the effectiveness of different PGR approaches, including price caps and the role of consumer mobility. We find that PGR works well, especially when it’s targeted rather than overly broad. Additionally, it is most effective for essential goods like paper towels but less so for items directly linked to public health, like hand sanitizer. Pricing alone isn’t the full story—the data suggests it drives only about half of PGR’s impact.

 

We’ll discuss key takeaways for policymakers, including when and how to implement PGR based on local market conditions.

speaker

Fred Feinberg

University of Michigan

Fred Feinberg is Handleman Professor of Marketing (Ross School of Business) and Professor of Statistics (Dept. of Statistics), University of Michigan. He received SB degrees in Mathematics and Linguistics & Philosophy from MIT, and his PhD from the MIT-Sloan School of Management. His research uses statistical models to explain complex decisions, particularly involving sequential choices; the interface between marketing and engineering design; optimization for charitable organizations; and multi-agent choices (e.g., in online dating), using Bayesian, machine learning, and dynamic programming methods. He has held editorial positions at Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research and POMS, was a finalist for the O’Dell and Little Awards, and on the author team receiving the 2011 Best Paper award from IJRM. He is co-author of Modern Marketing Research: Concepts, Methods, and Cases, served as co-Chair for the 2009 ISMS Marketing Science conference, as well as President of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (2018-20). In his “spare time”, he likes to play piano and bake challah, though rarely concurrently.

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