Rent control, described in this post, is an example of price ceiling. Now this story in LA Times describes one version of price floors on department store goods in Europe:
In America, merchants hold sales whenever they like. In parts of Europe, it’s the government that makes the rules.Twice a year, in January and June or July, French law allows retailers to post the word “sale” in their windows and significantly cut prices.
The costs of such a price floor?
The government sets the dates, and for four to six weeks, there is mayhem. The usual French decorum is dropped as shoppers, who on an ordinary day wouldn’t dream of eating lunch or drinking a cup of coffee on the streets the way Americans do, gobble baguette sandwiches as they race from shop to shop.
and at an aggregate level:
[Such] restrictions help explain why in France and in the euro zone, consumer spending is expected to account for about 56% of the gross national product in 2007, compared to 70.3% in the U.S., according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Another example for price floors (again from France) is this ban on free shipping for Amazon.com. Typically, price floors make consumers bear the cost at the behalf of protected producers, which is why it’s great to see that Amazon is fighting back.
