Sticker shock has set in for many Americans as since President Biden took office during the pandemic in 2021, grocery prices have risen by about 21%. Vice President Kamala Harris has placed some of the blame on food companies for raising prices during opportune moments.

University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Isabella Weber joins Market Domination Overtime to give insight into price gouging and price control and what businesses and investors need to know.

Weber says that though inflation is easing, it's "unrealistic" to think that prices are going back down to pre-pandemic levels: "We are in the middle of a major geopolitical tensions that affect globalization. Climate change is a reality that affects us in the here and now. It's no longer an issue of our children and grandchildren. It's really a matter of extreme weather events that are hitting people and the economy around the globe pretty much all the time already and are bound to become worse. Which means that especially for the food industry, they're going to be more supply shocks to come."

Weber argues that laws targeting price-gouging "are laws that prepare for emergencies and federal price-gouging laws are good disaster-preparedness economic policy in the world that we are living in."

Weber also believes that the "exploding prices" seen in grocery stores are, in large part, due to corporate greed. Companies look "to protect their profit margins" when certain phenomena, such as an extreme weather event or a global pandemic, cause raw material prices to rise.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino