Original paper title
Why Do Citizens Support Price Controls? The Role of Motivated Beliefs
A lower displayed price and a greater chance of obtaining a product are different things. A binding price cap may benefit those who manage to buy while leaving others without the good. Understanding public support therefore requires looking beyond the price on the shelf.
Maldonado and Sautua ask why support persists when people learn about this trade-off. Is accurate information enough, or does personally experiencing scarcity change how people evaluate the same policy? And do people respond differently when their own choice will determine what happens?
The authors study motivated beliefs: views that people may find comforting because they fit a prior preference for government intervention. Their experiment creates a setting where material consequences, information and decision-making responsibility can be varied separately.
A market with real consequences
The study recruited 821 university students for 45 sessions at the Rosario Experimental and Behavioral Economics Laboratory in Bogotá, between October 2022 and March 2023. Participants bought a fictitious good, with real payments linked to decisions.
In the experimental free market, everyone could buy; under the price cap, the price was lower but only half could purchase. The main comparison assigned sessions to factual information or direct experience. An additional treatment reversed the order of market experience.
Independently, one person in each group of four made a binding choice of market regime, while the others made hypothetical choices. The researchers measured beliefs and preferences before and after learning about the cap.
Learning by experiencing the trade-off
In the restricted main comparison, participants receiving a factual explanation reduced their support from 80% to 62%. Among those who experienced the price cap, support fell from 76% to 41%. These are declines of about 18 and 35 percentage points, respectively.
The comparison is informative because the economic environment is held fixed: what differs is whether participants learn through an explanation or through participation in the regulated market. But the sample definition matters. The highlighted percentages use 351 participants with consistent beliefs and initial regime choices.
Experience also left a substantial group unconvinced. Even after facing the shortage, 41% in that restricted comparison still chose the cap. The authors interpret this persistence, together with the other experimental results, as evidence consistent with motivated beliefs rather than misinformation alone.
Support for the price cap, before and after learning
Factual information
Direct experience
When the choice determines the outcome
The experiment also separates expressing a preference from implementing a decision. In each group of four, one person’s choice was binding for the regime used later, while the other participants made hypothetical choices.
Among participants whose initial beliefs were optimistic, those with binding choices revised their beliefs more and were less likely to retain support for the cap. This contrast suggests that the material stakes of maintaining an appealing belief can shape the response to new evidence. It does not establish that the same magnitude would arise in an election or a national policy debate.
From evidence to questions for policy
Make the trade-off visible
Explain access and availability alongside the posted price. The experiment suggests that describing the intended benefit alone can leave a central part of the choice out of view.
Test ways to learn from outcomes
Simulations, carefully designed pilots and transparent feedback are possible applications to study. Their effectiveness outside the laboratory remains an empirical question.
Connect choices with consequences
The agency results motivate research on participatory decisions and accountability. They support testing these mechanisms, rather than assuming that hypothetical opinions predict consequential choices.
What the laboratory leaves open
The sample consists of university students in Bogotá, rather than a representative electorate. The market was deliberately simplified, sellers were automated and learning was measured over a short period.
The laboratory abstracts from fairness, distributional conflict, partisan cues and repeated exposure. Support that persists is consistent with the authors’ motivated-beliefs account; it is not proof that every participant’s preference is irrational.
The largest headline changes use a restricted sample with consistent beliefs and initial choices. Full-sample estimates are smaller, making the sample definition essential to interpretation.
Original abstract (English)
Despite broad expert consensus that price controls are economically inefficient, they remain popular. We study this puzzle through the lens of motivated beliefs: Individuals who favor government intervention may derive gratification from believing that price controls increase welfare. In a laboratory market, participants shopped under monetary incentives and chose between a free-market regime and a price-cap regime. We varied whether participants learned about the cap through factual information or direct exposure to its consequences, and whether their regime choice was decisive. We find that both information and exposure reduced support for the price cap, but exposure was substantially more effective. However, many participants continued to support the cap after experiencing shortages. Participants with decisive regime choices were less likely to endorse the price cap after adverse information or exposure. Thus, support for inefficient policies reflects not only misinformation but self-serving beliefs that persist when individuals are not held accountable for policy outcomes.
Suggested citation
Maldonado, Stanislao, and Santiago I. Sautua. 2026. “Why Do Citizens Support Price Controls? The Role of Motivated Beliefs.” LACEA BRAIN Working Paper No. 2026-01.
Research team
Stanislao Maldonado and Santiago I. Sautua. The experiment was conducted at REBEL, Universidad del Rosario, with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank.
Paper version
The paper uses the version available from BEER Lab, with a LACEA BRAIN Working Paper Series cover.
Version available at BEER Lab ↗