Price Gouging and Market Clearing Prices
Price gouging refers to when a seller greatly increases the price of a product to the point where it may be considered unethical. It is commonly caused by a supply or demand shock, where people may have no choice but to pay the prices set by sellers. Price gouging laws serve to ensure that there are no drastic increases in price following something such as a natural disaster. These laws ensure that consumers do not have to pay unfairly high prices because they have no other options. But these laws also eliminate the economic incentive that sellers would otherwise have had to supply additional goods to the area in need.
Politicians often opt for anti-gouging laws because they want to please the masses, who are the consumers. As a result, the shortage continues. These politicians keeping market prices artificially low are preventing the market from naturally reaching market clearing prices. Only a select number of consumers will get the product, and then the supply will run out and remaining consumers will be left with nothing. These anti-gouging laws are really just good politics that ultimately serve to prevent the market from clearing and do more harm than good to the vast majority of people.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2016/09/23/price-gouging-laws-are-good-politics-but-bad-economics/#16482fa34970