Exactly. Rent controls simply redistribute the spoils of an inefficient market from rentier to renter. New York's strictest rent controls occurred during the pe

Exactly. Rent controls simply redistribute the spoils of an inefficient market from rentier to renter. New York's strictest rent controls occurred during the period of fastest house building (post war). Note that they're not presenting data like this because the data is inconvenient to their theory. If the Economist were serious about encouraging property development (they're not) they'd encourage making land a tax liability rather than an asset, so that inefficiently used land (e.g bungalows in sf) would be voluntarily yielded for more productive use. The Economist has always taken the side of rentiers though, and probably always will.