Supply chains, worker wages and the price of energy has been blamed for the current bout of high inflation. But central bankers around the world are starting to clue in to something consumers have been aware of for a while — corporations just aren’t afraid to raise their prices anymore.
That leads to unexpected consequences of them. Shrinkflation, strong-arming suppliers even more, etc. And then adminstrating/enforcing against infractions just becomes prohibitive to maintain.
Maybe. But we already do this for a lot of things. Drugs is the most well-known. If we know what the production cost is (and the government can just request that info), we can set the price ceiling to ensure the profit floor still exists. This is pretty common in government contracts: % profit.