Testing for the Effectiveness of Wage-Price Controls: An Application to the Carter Program

policies have been in effect in the United States more than half the time. The Kennedy-Johnson wage-price guideposts lasted almost six years, although they were tattered and torn by the time they were abandoned in 1967. The Nixon Administration's Economic Stabilization Program (ESP)-the only peacetime mandatory controls program in the United States-lasted four years, although the second half of the program (Phases III and IV) was a period of decontrol. The Carter Administration's Pay and Price Standards Program lasted a little more than two years, although the second year was