Ruling prices: price ceiling policies

Chapter 4 explores the postwar era of inflation and governmental “price ceiling” policies. Government and market actors joined forces to handle various problems associated with the price ceiling policy. The hybridization of regulations and retail management practices contributed to reshape price setting in the retail market. The chapter shows that price fluctuations are not only about the opposition between professional market players and economic or social forces; they also rest on the decisive contribution of “equipment providers” who devise the technologies and infrastructures that bridge and transform the two sides. These evolutions contributed to reshape price setting in the retail market. This led to the spread of “stereoscopic prices”, that is, the simultaneous display of offered price and reference prices, which gave rise to new forms of price competition and reshaped product qualification and pricing processes.