Gerhard Tintner: Review of Preistheorie und Preiseingriff (1938)

Gerhard Tintner’s journal book review assesses Arnold Horwitz’s doctoral thesis on government price fixing. Its central judgment is that Horwitz supplies a clear, systematic treatment of intervention across different market structures, extending beyond the previously studied problem of taxation under monopoly.

But this doctoral thesis is the first systematic treatment of the result of government price fixing under different degrees of competition and monopoly.

This claim identifies the book’s contribution as comparative: the consequences of price regulation must be examined under distinct conditions of competition and monopoly. Tintner outlines a progression through free competition, monopoly, bilateral monopoly, oligopoly, and bilateral oligopoly. Within these settings, Horwitz considers different regulatory instruments:

All forms of price fixing, minimum prices, maximum prices and direct price fixation are discussed and their effect is described.

The review thus presents the thesis as organized around both market structure and the form of intervention. It does not reproduce Horwitz’s conclusions about particular price controls, so its endorsement establishes the study’s scope and value rather than demonstrating its economic results.

Tintner locates Horwitz’s analysis within two intellectual lineages: von Mises’s work on price regulation and von Stackelberg’s account of market organization. He also credits Horwitz with familiarity with contemporary English and American developments, presenting the thesis as informed by scholarship beyond its immediate German setting.

The closing assessment combines praise with a research agenda. Tintner regards the thesis as filling an important gap, while hoping that Horwitz will develop his views more fully and extend the analysis to imperfect competition, selling costs, and price discrimination. These are proposed directions for further work, not findings already established in the review. Its significance lies in recognizing the need for a differentiated theory of government price fixing and identifying where that inquiry should next expand.