The General Ceiling Price Regulation. Problems of Coverage and Exclusion

Abstract

Direct price controls under OPS really began when the General Ceiling Price Regulation (GCPR) was issued on January 26, I95I.1 Although described as an interim regulation, the GCPR remained in effect for many sellers and commodities throughout the entire period of price control from January I95I to March I953. In this respect, it paralleled the history of its predecessor under the Office of Price Administration during World War II, the General Maximum Price Regulation (GMPR or General Max), after which it was largely patterned. Each of these two general price freeze regulations was issued after an initial period in which reliance was placed mainly on voluntary or selective techniques of price control, and only after the stabilization agencies became convinced that such voluntary or selective methods would not work.2 Based on past experience, it seems reasonable to expect that, in a future general emergency calling for the imposition of direct price controls, a general price freeze will be utilized again. The purposes of this study are to describe the origin and development of some of the major provisions of the GCPR and to analyze and discuss some of the problems not apparent from a mere reading of the regulatory provisions themselves, and in doing so to set down some comments and suggestions which might be of value in connection with the use of a general freeze in the future. The factors that led to the use of other methods of price control for many things originally covered by the general freeze, are beyond the scope of this study. Under both OPA and OPS, a general freeze was viewed primarily as a comprehensive stopgap measure, and secondarily as a continuing mechanism for miscellaneous items. Some of these were not sufficiently important or troublesome to require specific regulations; for others, the freeze was as good a technique of control as any other.