3 ms·

By the same logic, I'm sure that rent control makes economists sad, too. However, if that didn't exist, NY and SF would just be real estate speculation ghost to

by scrame 12y ago

By the same logic, I'm sure that rent control makes economists sad, too. However, if that didn't exist, NY and SF would just be real estate speculation ghost towns.

tg3 12y ago
I'm not sure that SF's current real estate situation is much better.
tptacek 12y ago
I think that sentiment is pretty far from uncontroversial amongst economists of all stripes. Here's a survey paper: http://econjwatch.org/articles/rent-control-do-economists-agree http://econjwatch.org/articles/rent-control-do-economists-ag... Here's what Matthew Yglesias --- hardly a standard-bearer for libertarian economics --- has to say about it: http://beyondchron.org/matthew-yglesias-is-right-the-rent-is-too-damn-high/ http://beyondchron.org/matthew-yglesias-is-right-the-rent-is... (Yglesias is not an economist but is a decent proxy, since this is kind of his "beat").
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  For the life of me, I don't understand why we don't replace rent control with means-tested cash grants if we really care about displacement (and pay for it out of a Land Value Tax, but that can be an orthogonal issue). The way we have it now, we're screwing arbitrary renters (including poor ones) that happen to move between apts more often, to pay arbitrary renters that happen to move less often (including rich ones). I don't understand how anyone could say it's good policy with a straight face.
- declan 12y ago
  Excerpt from that survey paper you cited, which reports that economists agree that "rent control is bad": ...I find that the preponderance of the literature points toward the conclusion that rent control introduces inefficiencies in housing markets. Moreover, the literature on the whole does not sustain any plausible redemption in terms of redistribution. The literature on the whole may be fairly said to show that rent control is bad, yet as of 2001, about 140 jurisdictions persist in some form of the intervention...
penguat 12y ago
Oh, they'd top out, eventually, possibly even crash spectacularly. Which should winnow out those rich but stupid people who believe it'll go up forever, except that if it's at large enough scale, governments step in to prevent those losses.
alexeisadeski3 12y ago
The amount of economic ignorance on display in here is not only astounding but deeply depressing.
icebraining 12y ago
Actually, that's what they're becoming with price control: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-apartments-are-empty-yet-rented-or-owned-census-finds.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-apartments-a...

by scrame 12y ago

By the same logic, I'm sure that rent control makes economists sad, too. However, if that didn't exist, NY and SF would just be real estate speculation ghost towns.

tg3 12y ago

I'm not sure that SF's current real estate situation is much better.

tptacek 12y ago

I think that sentiment is pretty far from uncontroversial amongst economists of all stripes. Here's a survey paper: http://econjwatch.org/articles/rent-control-do-economists-agree http://econjwatch.org/articles/rent-control-do-economists-ag... Here's what Matthew Yglesias --- hardly a standard-bearer for libertarian economics --- has to say about it: http://beyondchron.org/matthew-yglesias-is-right-the-rent-is-too-damn-high/ http://beyondchron.org/matthew-yglesias-is-right-the-rent-is... (Yglesias is not an economist but is a decent proxy, since this is kind of his "beat").

wutbrodo 12y ago
For the life of me, I don't understand why we don't replace rent control with means-tested cash grants if we really care about displacement (and pay for it out of a Land Value Tax, but that can be an orthogonal issue). The way we have it now, we're screwing arbitrary renters (including poor ones) that happen to move between apts more often, to pay arbitrary renters that happen to move less often (including rich ones). I don't understand how anyone could say it's good policy with a straight face.
declan 12y ago
Excerpt from that survey paper you cited, which reports that economists agree that "rent control is bad": ...I find that the preponderance of the literature points toward the conclusion that rent control introduces inefficiencies in housing markets. Moreover, the literature on the whole does not sustain any plausible redemption in terms of redistribution. The literature on the whole may be fairly said to show that rent control is bad, yet as of 2001, about 140 jurisdictions persist in some form of the intervention...

penguat 12y ago

Oh, they'd top out, eventually, possibly even crash spectacularly. Which should winnow out those rich but stupid people who believe it'll go up forever, except that if it's at large enough scale, governments step in to prevent those losses.

alexeisadeski3 12y ago

The amount of economic ignorance on display in here is not only astounding but deeply depressing.

icebraining 12y ago

Actually, that's what they're becoming with price control: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-apartments-are-empty-yet-rented-or-owned-census-finds.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-apartments-a...