This power converter is characterized by being provided with: a rectifier circuit; an inverter circuit having a full-bridge structure including a first leg and a second leg, which are each serially connected to two switching elements, and a direct-current capacitor; a transformer; and a control circuit for controlling the operation of the inverter circuit. The power converter is further characterized in that the control circuit controls increases and decreases in the current flowing via a first rectifier circuit from an alternating-current input by controlling the On-period of the first leg, and maintains the voltage of the direct-current capacitor at a constant value by controlling the On-period of the second leg and the phase shift amount of the On-period of the first leg and the On-period of the second leg. The power converter makes it possible to simultaneously carry out high-power-factor control and output-power control via a single-stage full-bridge inverter circuit.