IGM Forum Poll

Another two-fer.  My excuse is studying for finals and working on some final papers...

French labor policies.  I lied, this is sort of a three-fer, as this is a two part poll.

Question A: Reducing the minimum retirement age in France from 62 back to age 60, permanently, would reduce long-term French economic growth and substantially raise French debt relative to GDP over time.

Question B: France’s overall employment is higher today because of the 35 hour work week than it would be without a limit on weekly hours.
General agreement for A, I think it's hard to argue against it, and the one disagree vote didn't have a comment.  Encouraging people to not work (retirement) surely can't help growth.  Question B, I think that the general equilibrium effect is difficult to assess; a few economists think this, quite a few uncertain votes.  If (big if) workers are homogeneous and each hour they work is homogeneous, then the work hour limit would boost employment - you want to hire a certain number of total hours, but it's split between more people.  Research project, maybe?

Price gouging.
Connecticut should pass its Senate Bill 60, which states that during a “severe weather event emergency, no person within the chain of distribution of consumer goods and services shall sell or offer to sell consumer goods or services for a price that is unconscionably excessive.”
Lots of beef with "unconscionably".  For the most part, people like pricing mechanisms in the free market setting, which I'm a fan of, but a few economists are wise enough to point out unfortunate monopoly effects.  If a rich-ish person (not so rich that they wouldn't mind arbitraging a little) sucked up quite a bit of the supply, this would lead to some serious inefficiencies.  Two agree, and Angus Deaton steps in and strongly agrees: "Efficiency is less important than distribution under such transitory conditions."  I'm torn; if people aren't jerks about it, this law isn't necessary, but I'm rather skeptical about people not being jerks...  Professor Deaton is right, though, efficiency needs to take a back seat if the welfare of a good amount of citizens is suffering.