I added among categories Economic Theory in addition to Economic History. We normally assume that fixed price system began by the arrival of giant retailers and the system stated from the late 19th century or a head of 20th century. However, can you imagine that a grocery or a bake in a village in the 19th century repeated haggling. It is quite possible that Villagers must know the prices of goods and they did not wrangle the price. How do you think?

I want to know how the fixed-price system or custom is spread in the early 19th century? How about the early modern times before Industrial Revolution? 

Professor Carneiro de Sousa,

thank you for detailed description about financial questions in Roman Empire. I did not know there were already such a powerful money lenders who can influence Caesar and other emperors.

Do you know something how the prices of consumption goods and services such as bread and circus are determined? Are they negotiated each time or fixed by convention?  

Yoshinori (this is my first name)

Do you know papers and articles that investigated how the retail prices were fixed or remained undetermined?.  

I want to know the cases in the 18th and early 19th century. Maybe we can find a good testimony in novels written in those period.

Dear Ivo Carneiro,

thank you for your efforts.

I found an article that argues that one-price policy was widely spread in the U.S. even before the Civil War.

In the article

James D. Norris (1962) One-Price Policy among Antebellum Country Stores. Buisness History Review 36(4): 455-458.

the author summarizes his survey as follows:

While “higgling” always occurred to some degree in most country stores, this article establishes evidence that, for many basic commodities, a system of standard prices existed in some country stores long before the Civil War.

Dears Ivo and Yoshinori,

It is really interesting discussion.I agree with Ivo that the first announced price fixing is made by Emperor Diocletian. Its date probably at 301 AD. See the attached Pdf or this link: https://community.plu.edu/~315j06/doc/diocletians-price.pdf

Muna Abdelhamed,

thank you for interesting article. I have read the article on the Edict issued by Emperor Diocletian. The decline of  Roman empire attracts our interest. There are some similarities between the fall of Roman empire and the decline of modern economy. If we find a good scheme, it may be difficult to redress the world economy to a more normal state.

Price edict of Emperor Diocletian must be interpreted as one of the earliest efforts to fight against inflation. However, one-price policy of modern retail shops is totally different from such stipulations, order or edicts that fix prices by law. One-price policy is an autonomous effort from the side of sellers and the price can change if costs and other conditions change. One-price policy is more oriented to cut down sales costs, mainly the time necessary to negotiate the price, and to warrant justice and fairness for all customers.

Is it all right that I conclude that  the first public price-tag system (in modern age) was introduced by Mitsui Takatoshi in 1673?

Neoclassical economics assumes that prices change frequently. We normally assume that the economy was competitive before the arrival of corporate giants at the end of the 19th century. However, is it rue that prices of bread and other consumer goods fluctuated everyday? I wonder if this is a fiction constructed by the neoclassical economics.  

It is my impression that in pre-revolutionary America simple commodity prices were frequently fixed by town councils. I am not convinced that they were free-marketers. Instead, they may have primarily been price controllers. Mills were often the most important public utility. I would assume that the price for milling would have been set by officials. So price controls may have been the rule. Maybe by the time of neo-classical economics that would have all changed. Is that about the time of Marshall? Perhaps the classical economists were simple echoing the transition from price controls to free markets that was taking place in the economy. This is all very impressionistic; feel free to ignore.

Thank you, Peter.  We are questioning a past fact that may not have been recorded. All starts from guessing.

It i s astonishing that town councils intervened in prices of simple commodities. Probably, they fixed the prices of goods that are well known and used frequently by people. Even in that case, the list must be limited to a small number of goods. In addition, those goods must be "standardized". If not, price fixing has no good effects. However, we can easily guess that there were no "standard" in the modern sense.

In the case of mills, it is easy to imagine that the milling service was set by officials. As you observed, price control must have been spread widely for various goods.

My question is doubly flexed. I first suppose a situation where merchants were free to set prices of their goods and ask when price-fixing like open price-tag was introduced. So I have to question when the price control of many of commodities were put off. The next question is how and when this price tag system was spread. Of course, it is necessary to know why this is economically more rational than negotiating prices each time of transactions.  

I suspect that you will be able to find actual evidence of price fixing in taverns.

Aha! It's a great idea. As I am no historian, I have no means to search such materials. I wonder if someone will be interested in our question and examine old menus. We may find when prices became listed in those cards in restaurants. This must be a work of true historian but if he or she can find something, it will be a great contribution to the economic history. We talk much about markets but know very little about it.         

Is it all right that I cite that the fixed price policy with price tags was first made public in the modern world by Mitsui Echigoya in 1673?

Mitsui Takatoshi has made Genkin Kakenenashi (cash only no markups) a public policy of his store. 

Notes:

"Markups" here means the price setting custom to put a higher price in expectation to abate it in the face to face negotiation.

In Edo period (1603-1867), it was custom that the clients pay their Kake (account payable) two time a year or one time in December. Takatoshi abolished this Kake system and accepted only cash payment and realized a cheap price.

Here are two pictures showing how the motto was shown at the store front.

The second case we know in Japanese economic history is Itō Gofukuten (later Matsuzakaya). Itō Sukefusa changed in 1736 his business style to broad cloth retail shop and started Shōfuda Kakenenashi (fixed taged price, no markups) system.

http://www.matsuzakaya.co.jp/corporate/history/edo/03.shtml

These two case are much earlier than that Bon Marché (1852) in France, Whiteley (1863) in England and Macy (1858) in the U.S.A. started their Depatrment Store shops and started tag price system. It is known that John Wanamker introduced price tag in his Philadelphia store, but the system may reflect the custom established among Philadelphia Quaker merchants.

https://timespelunking.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/the-invention-of-the-price-tag/

It would be better that I give more detailed information about the business that Takatoshi started. We have a copy of publicity flyer when he started the business. We give its translation here. The original of this flyer was lost by a series of fires. The present text was copied by the eighth chief of the house Takayoshi in the fifthe year of Kaei (1852). Here is the text in my translation:

• Echiogoya Hachirōemon in Surugachō humbly announces:
• In this new occasion, as I have started a new attempt and sells any clothes at a specially cheap price, please come to and buy at my store. We do no visiting sales at home of any clients. As we have put on sale on account of services and cost, we do not tell a price even a penny high than we have fixed. As a consequence, we do not abate any price even if any clients ask us to do so. Of course, we accept all prices in cash. We do not sell any good at account. This is all I want to say.
• Cash payment, cheap price, no markups

Clothes shop

Echigoya Hachiōemon at 2-chōme Surugachō

The original text in Japanese (written in a Chinese-Japanese mixed style ):

駿河町越後屋八郎右衛門申上候今度私工夫を以呉服物何に不依格別下値に売出し申候間私店に御出御買被下候何方様にも為持遣候義は不仕候尤手間割合勘定を以売出し候上は壱銭にても空値不申上候間御直き利被遊候而も負ハ無御座候勿論代物は即座に御払可被下候一銭にても延金には不仕候以上

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　呉服物現金　　　駿河町弐丁目

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　安売無掛値　　　越後屋八郎右衛門

From this text of the flyer, we cannot know if Echigoya used price tags from the startup time. No words like shōfuda (price tag) is used in this flyer.  

I have made a mistake. I wrote that Echogoya started Genkin kakenenashi system in 1673. This was the year that Mitsui Taktoshi opend his shop in Edo. Genkin kakenenashi seems to have started when Echigoya removed to Surugacho ten years later in 1683.

As I have note in the previous post, it is not known if the shop used the open price tag at this time. A flyer (or an announcement) of unknown date (attached picture) writes Genkin Shōfuda (Cash, open price tag) under the house mark of Echigoya. So, it is certain that Echigoya have used Shōfuda system at some time before Meiji revolution but the exact date is not known for the moment.  

I found two additional information on the beginning of one-price system.

One is noted in Werner Sombard's Liebe, Luxus und Kapitalisum.(1922). Sombard notes that it was Au Petit Dunkerque, a bijoux shop, situated at 3 Quai Conti (6e Arr.), Paris. Somard cites a book by Mercier published in 1783. The note appears in number (4) of the short history of silk industry in Section 2, Chapter5. (p.277 in Japanese translation Kodansha Gakujutsu Bonko).

Another information is given by Neil McKendrick in McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb (1982/2018) The Birth of a Counsuemer Society. He writes in page 86:

• what James Lackington had tried to introduce in 1780 -- fixed prices and no credit -- was regarded as being established by 1800, and by 1821 a single fixed 'No ABATEMENT' linen draper was reported to be taking ￡500 a day and employing thirty assistants.

The Echigoya case of 1683 (See my three posts above) precedes about one century before one-price, no abatement and no credit system seemed to be introduced in Paris and London.

I wanted to know the exact text that Sombard cited as the oldest case of fixed price system as far as he knew.

It was astonishing that a part of Mercier's book Le Tableau de Paris (1782, 1783, 1788) has been translated into Japanese. Is this a book so famous? Unfortunately, the part that is translated into Japanese is only one fifth of the whole book.

I have searched the possible chapter in the translation but could not find a good place. Does someone knows where the text appears or how to read the text? Reference given by Sombard does not seem very exact.