The daily economic and business news constantly focuses on spending and the flow of dollars between consumers and firms. Reporters eagerly ask whether consumers are spending enough to keep the economy growing, and whether businesses are earning enough to pay more to workers and stockholders.

Yet there’s an old adage that encourages us to look away from prices and profits and consider more intangible, yet important, gifts, such as sincerity, honesty, love, and compassion. Many say traits such as these, which don’t have price tags, are really the best things in life. For them, we can focus on their quality and meaning without worrying about any cost.

Wouldn’t it be nice to extend these free “best things” to other products and services, such as gasoline, health care, food, and a college education? Wouldn’t it be nice if all the necessities required in today’s economy were also free?

This is where the reality of economics splashes cold water on our face. Perhaps this is one reason why economics is often referred to as the “dismal science.” Economists argue that prices actually serve a good role, for both producers and consumers. For without prices, we wouldn’t have many of those everyday “good things,” such as food on our plates, roofs over our heads, and clothes on our backs. Even if we did, without prices we wouldn’t appreciate them as much.

Let’s look at the benefit of prices first from the producer, or business, side. I think you’d agree that valuable products are costly to produce. For example, in order to put gasoline in our cars, oil must be pumped from underground reservoirs, transported sometimes halfway around the world, refined into gasoline, and distributed to retailers for purchase. If companies along this chain of production weren’t able to receive prices that covered their costs, they wouldn’t go to all this effort, and our cars would sit idle.

An increase in a price is often beneficial because it ensures a larger supply of the product later. Again, look at today’s oil market. The rapid industrialization of developing countries, particularly in Asia, has spiked world usage of oil and led to record high oil prices.

But the upside of the higher prices is that they have created a stampede by producers to find more oil supplies. Exploration for new oil fields and the conversion of previously untapped sources, such as oil sands and oil shale, to oil are now in high gear and will increase oil supplies in later years. Plus, without higher oil prices, there wouldn’t be today’s push to develop alternative fuels.

For consumers, prices are a way of communicating value, of making consumers realize some sacrifice was needed to make the product or service available. In turn, paying a price for a product or service motivates consumers to carefully use the product and to not waste it.

A personal example might illustrate this idea. When I was a teen-ager, my father gave me a “hand me down” car. I was excited and proud to have it and drove the car for a couple of years. However, my next vehicle I bought myself with money I had earned at a restaurant. I regularly changed the oil, cleaned it, and kept the car in top running order, things I hadn’t done with the first vehicle.

Why did I behave differently? I think it was because I paid a price for the second car, whereas I paid nothing for the first. Paying for the second car allowed me to connect the dots between working at the restaurant and getting something good (the car) for my efforts. And I wasn’t going to waste my hard work by not taking care of the car. Interestingly, studies of college students show those paying their own tuition take care of their education more by graduating on time at a higher rate.

None of my comments should take away from the importance of unpriced ideals, values, and character traits that are commonly held in high esteem. On a personal level, I agree that these are the “best things.” But for other, more mundane, needs, I argue that prices actually help more than they hurt.

Michael L. Walden is a William Neal Reynolds distinguished professor at North Carolina State University.