5 ms·

You have linked to no scholarly papers, and the Wikipedia article seems to carefully avoid stating there is the consensus you claim. Are you aware that there i

by chalst 6y ago

You have linked to no scholarly papers, and the Wikipedia article seems to carefully avoid stating there is the consensus you claim. Are you aware that there is no consensus in economics that rents are determined by the interaction between a determinate upwards-sloping supply curve, representing landlord's willingness to so many units at any given price, and a likewise downwards-sloping demand curve for renter's disposition? Many of the just-so stories about Econ 101 assume this is so.

sampo 6y ago
> Wikipedia article seems to carefully avoid stating there is the consensus you claim. Ctrl+f consensus, and you find: "There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units."
- chalst 6y ago
  Found it - that's remarkably lame: an assertion that there is a consensus, "backed up" by a reference saying to see the "Economists views" section for references, which is a broken internal link. No problem, I edit Wikipedia and SOFIXIT applies. Since many economists have woken up to the failure of the "price determined by intersection of buyer-demand and seller-supply curves" thesis following the spectacular failure of this fitting the facts in the case of the minimal wage as documented by Krueger and Card in the 80s, there is today no such consensus.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    We're still waiting for at least one well known economist's opinion to the contrary. As for minimal wage - there is a consensus about it, you just fail to mention what the consensus is... (are you an economist?)
    - chalst 6y ago
      > We're still waiting I don't recall you asking me for a name, but if you insist, is Richard Arnott [1] good enough for you? He wrote the highly cited "Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?" You can explore the reaction of the economics profession to his arguments on Google Scholar [3]. He cites the figure of 93% of eonomists opposing rent control, which then could be considered a consensus, but that was before the work of Krueger and Card cast a shadow on these orthodoxies coming from simplistic marginalist arguments whose empirical support was weak anecdotal evidence. Today there is no such consensus. Incidentally, between the period of the perceived success of the New Deal and the pro-interventionist era immediately following WW2, there was also a consensus of economists on this question, but the opposite one: rent controls were viewed as a good thing. [1]: http://www.narsc.org/newsite/internal/richard-j-arnott/ http://www.narsc.org/newsite/internal/richard-j-arnott/ [2]: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.9.1.99 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.9.1.99 [3]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1157340330382125689&as_sdt=5,39&sciodt=7,39&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1157340330382125689...
      - JAlexoid 5y ago
        Wait! Who said that there's no consensus. The only thing that you presented, so far, is that 93% of economists oppose rent controls. And from what I read is that there's a debate into how much rent control is OK for the overall economy. Not really a change about its negative impact on the rental market.
        chalst 5y ago
        93% is generally evidence of consensus among the sampled group at that time. That time is past, but here and on Wikipedia there are people arguing there is currently a consensus among "economists" (unqualified). So far I have not seen anything I would count as a current consensus, and I don't believe there is one. It's also worth noticing a bait and switch here. The former consensus was that hard rent ceilings reduce the quality and quantity of supply. Then you see claims that its uncontroversial Econ 101 that any kind of rent control is bad for cities. If justification for the latter claim is sought, it is justified by the past-expiry-date evidence for the former claim. It's a good example of what Scott Alexander calls a motte and bailey argument.

by chalst 6y ago

sampo 6y ago

> Wikipedia article seems to carefully avoid stating there is the consensus you claim. Ctrl+f consensus, and you find: "There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units."

chalst 6y ago
Found it - that's remarkably lame: an assertion that there is a consensus, "backed up" by a reference saying to see the "Economists views" section for references, which is a broken internal link. No problem, I edit Wikipedia and SOFIXIT applies. Since many economists have woken up to the failure of the "price determined by intersection of buyer-demand and seller-supply curves" thesis following the spectacular failure of this fitting the facts in the case of the minimal wage as documented by Krueger and Card in the 80s, there is today no such consensus.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  We're still waiting for at least one well known economist's opinion to the contrary. As for minimal wage - there is a consensus about it, you just fail to mention what the consensus is... (are you an economist?)
  - chalst 6y ago
    > We're still waiting I don't recall you asking me for a name, but if you insist, is Richard Arnott [1] good enough for you? He wrote the highly cited "Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?" You can explore the reaction of the economics profession to his arguments on Google Scholar [3]. He cites the figure of 93% of eonomists opposing rent control, which then could be considered a consensus, but that was before the work of Krueger and Card cast a shadow on these orthodoxies coming from simplistic marginalist arguments whose empirical support was weak anecdotal evidence. Today there is no such consensus. Incidentally, between the period of the perceived success of the New Deal and the pro-interventionist era immediately following WW2, there was also a consensus of economists on this question, but the opposite one: rent controls were viewed as a good thing. [1]: http://www.narsc.org/newsite/internal/richard-j-arnott/ http://www.narsc.org/newsite/internal/richard-j-arnott/ [2]: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.9.1.99 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.9.1.99 [3]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1157340330382125689&as_sdt=5,39&sciodt=7,39&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1157340330382125689...
    - JAlexoid 5y ago
      Wait! Who said that there's no consensus. The only thing that you presented, so far, is that 93% of economists oppose rent controls. And from what I read is that there's a debate into how much rent control is OK for the overall economy. Not really a change about its negative impact on the rental market.
      - chalst 5y ago
        93% is generally evidence of consensus among the sampled group at that time. That time is past, but here and on Wikipedia there are people arguing there is currently a consensus among "economists" (unqualified). So far I have not seen anything I would count as a current consensus, and I don't believe there is one. It's also worth noticing a bait and switch here. The former consensus was that hard rent ceilings reduce the quality and quantity of supply. Then you see claims that its uncontroversial Econ 101 that any kind of rent control is bad for cities. If justification for the latter claim is sought, it is justified by the past-expiry-date evidence for the former claim. It's a good example of what Scott Alexander calls a motte and bailey argument.