In Italy it's illegal, you cannot hoard or speculate on basic necessities (as the masks are being considered during the epidemic).

https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2020/02/26/news/coronavir...

Perfect way to guarantee shortages. Let the price float and there is an incentive for businesses to figure out how to increase the supply quickly, thus causing the price to drop.

The economic theory on this is rock-solid and yet it seems impossible to educate the general public or government officials regarding the consequences of price controls.

It's not as clear cut as you say.

For example, the large increase in price creates perverse incentives to reduce the available supply and make it available at a higher price (eg. buying all the masks at $n and reselling them at a price greater than n).

A higher price also encourages counterfeiting; making fake masks that sell for $1 isn't that profitable, but if they sell for $50, there's definitely more of an incentive to do so.

The problem of low-quality or defective merchandise exists at any price point. Adding price controls doesn't prevent that problem and in fact would encourage black markets where defective merchandise is less likely to be detected by consumers or regulators.

You suppose that you only have one "hoarder" (or speculator) in the market.

Once you have many, and if they don't talk together (which would be forbidden), masks would sell lower than what you think

In cases of extremely skewed demand/supply the price never actually goes down, and all the buyers get hosed. See: concert tickets.

Not the situation we are talking about but even in that situation a government control on the price of the concert tickets could easily create a shortage. An entertainer would just choose to have concerts in a different jurisdiction that didn't limit the prices leading to 0 seats in the location with price controls.

The entertainer makes zero money on the added price of tickets from trading dynamics we are talking about, it’s all middlemen.

Doesn't change the analysis re: supply and demand. Just changes to a discussion of the middlemen as a supplier.

It invalidates what you mentioned re. the entertainer avoiding a certain location due to price control. And btw, price control in this case means “no resale above ticket price” or something similar, not the government controlling the pricing itself. The supply is fixed so there can’t be a shortage (except when it’s caused by price gouging performed by middlemen).

You could also try directly killing people for money if that's your thing.

what is profitable for the individual may not be profitable for the group.