Some Thoughts on the Changing Role of Price

This article provides some indications that price plays a larger part in the coordination of economic activity in the United States than it formerly did. The phenomenon of vertical integration in agriculture, which has been widely associated with a declining importance of price, may actually have contributed to its larger importance. It is suggested that casting vertical integration in the framework provided by market structure theory may be misleading. The relationship between market structure theory and agricultural price policy is briefly reexamined in this light, and it is argued that the economist should be concerned with restoring price to its role of inducing change.