  Consider a problem of forward error-correction for the additive white
Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. For finite blocklength codes the backoff from
the channel capacity is inversely proportional to the square root of the
blocklength. In this paper it is shown that codes achieving this tradeoff must
necessarily have peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) proportional to logarithm
of the blocklength. This is extended to codes approaching capacity slower, and
to PAPR measured at the output of an OFDM modulator. As a by-product the
convergence of (Smith's) amplitude-constrained AWGN capacity to Shannon's
classical formula is characterized in the regime of large amplitudes. This
converse-type result builds upon recent contributions in the study of empirical
output distributions of good channel codes.
