Unless you live in New York City, you’re not likely to live in a rent controlled house or apartment. Because economists have explained the unwanted effects of rent ceilings that you’ve learned about in this chapter, this type of market intervention is now rare.

But you run into a price ceiling almost every time you use a freeway. The zero price for using a freeway is a type of price ceiling. The next time you’re stuck in traffic and moving at a crawl, think about how a free market in road use would cut the congestion and allow you to zip along.

In Singapore, a transponder on your dashboard keeps track of your road use in dollars and cents as you drive around the city.

The price varies with the time of day, the traffic density, and MyEconLab Critical Thinking Exercise where in the city you are. As a result, you and other drivers are never stuck in slow-moving traffic.