Housing markets are affected by a large variety of factors. Among them, governmental regulations play an important role. Besides desired effects, all these policies exert a number of side effects, some of which can even offset the desired effects. In addition, different policies can cancel out...

Urban areas confront a chronic shortage of housing, especially in the low-rent segment. This precarious situation is further exacerbated by major challenges, like the destruction of housing by wars and natural catastrophes, rapid increase of demand, or pandemics cutting incomes. In response, the...

Housing cooperatives have a significant share in some countries, particularly in urban housing markets, and are supported by municipalities through tax breaks and preferential access to land. We examine the contribution of housing cooperatives to the provision of affordable housing and how they...

Housing bubbles and crashes are catastrophic events for economies, implying enormous destruction of housing wealth, financial default risks, construction unemployment, and business cycle downturns. This paper investigates whether governmental housing policies can affect economies’ propensity...

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. Highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents' agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent displacement of...

We empirically document that the effectiveness of the German rent control introduced in 2015 in achieving rental housing affordability is limited. Exploring the reasons for this limited effectiveness we focus on the impact of the rent control on the yield on rental housing investments proxied by...

Rent control is a highly debated social policy that has been omnipresent since World War I. Since the 2010s, it is experiencing a true renaissance, for many cities and countries facing chronic housing shortages are desperately looking for solution, directing their attention to controling housing...

This study investigates the effects of short-lived rent control regulations introduced in Catalonia in September 2020 and revoked in March 2022. Using the microdata of the largest Spanish housing advertisement portal idealista between January 2017 and May 2022, we analyze the dynamics of prices...

We empirically document that the effectiveness of the German rent control introduced in 2015 in achieving rental housing affordability is limited. Exploring the reasons for this limited effectiveness, we focus on the impact of the rent control on the yield on rental housing investments proxied...

Urban areas confront a chronic shortage of housing, especially in the low-rent segment. This precarious situation is further exacerbated by major challenges, like the destruction of housing by wars and natural catastrophes, rapid increase of demand, or pandemics cutting incomes. In response, the...

Housing cooperatives have a significant share in some countries, particularly in urban housing markets, and are supported by municipalities through tax breaks and preferential access to land. We examine the contribution of housing cooperatives to the provision of affordable housing and how they...

Purpose Rent control may lead to inefficient use of subsidized apartments. This paper aims to empirically investigate if this phenomenon exists under the Swedish rent control regime. Design/methodology/approach The quantitative part of the study uses data from Statistics Sweden to calculate, for...

We use a quantitative spatial equilibrium model to evaluate the distributional and welfare impacts of a recent temporary rent control policy in Berlin, Germany. We calibrate the model to key features of Berlin’s housing market, in particular the recent gentrification of inner city locations....

The long-run U-shaped patterns of economic inequality are standardly explained by basic economic trends (Piketty’s rg), taxation policies, or “great levelers,” like catastrophes. This paper argues that housing policy, in particular rent control, is a neglected explanatory factor in...

We conduct a representative survey experiment in Germany to understand why people support inefficient policies. In particular, we measure beliefs about and preferences for rent control - a policy that is widely regarded as harmful by experts. To tease out causal mechanisms, we provide randomly...

We empirically document that the effectiveness of the German rent control introduced in 2015 in achieving rental housing affordability is limited. Exploring the reasons for this limited effectiveness we focus on the impact of the rent control on the yield on rental housing investments proxied by...

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. Highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents' agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent displacement of...

Housing bubbles and crashes are catastrophic events for economies, implying enormous destruction of housing wealth, financial default risks, construction unemployment, and business cycle downturns. This paper investigates whether governmental housing policies can affect economies' propensity to...

Due to stringent regulation on the Swedish primary rental market, many individuals turn to long-term sublets to satisfy their housing demand. A lack of accessible data has made study of this market difficult. Using a unique dataset, we exploit weekly temporal variation over multiple treatment...

Vor dem Hintergrund nahezu kontinuierlich steigender Mietpreise in den angespannten Wohnungsmärken in den letzten zwölf Jahren ist es gerade in Zeiten zunehmender finanzieller Belastungen für die privaten Haushalte mehr als nachvollziehbar, dass die Politik preisdämpfende Maßnahmen...

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. Highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents’ agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent displacement of...

Die Lage auf dem Wohnungsmarkt in Deutschland ist angespannt. Das von der Bundesregierung avisierte Ziel von 400.000 neu zu bauenden Wohnungen pro Jahr kann nicht realisiert werden. Neben einem weiteren Anziehen der Mietpreisregulierung wird eine Liberalisierung der Mietpreise und eine Stärkung...

On January 20, 2020, I testified before the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing in favor of two bills then being considered that would have revived rent control in the Commonwealth. My testimony was a head-on attack on the industry arguments against the bills. Their...

Despite the consensus on the inefficiencies it creates in the housing market, rent stabilization is often advocated by tenant groups as a housing affordability policy. I show that contrary to usual belief, the main benefit of rent regulation for tenants is not the protection it provides against...

This article considers if it is possible to legislate for rent control and rent freezes in Ireland in light of the strong protections for private property set out in the 1937 Constitution. The main cases are analysed and some guidance offered as to the features of a statutory scheme that would...

The (re-)introduction of rent regulation in the form of rent controls, tenant protection or supply rationing is back on the agenda of policymakers in light of rent inflation in many global cities. While rent control as social policy promises short-term relief, economists point to their negative...

Following World War I, rent control became a standard policy response to the housing shortage and the resulting rent increases. Typically, economists blame it for creating inefficiencies in the housing market and beyond. We investigate whether rental market regulations (including rent control,...

This paper evaluates the rent control policy implemented in Germany in 2015. Like many countries around the world, German cities and metropolitan areas have experienced a strong increase in rental prices during the last decade. In response, the politicians aimed to dampen the rise in rental...

In the shadow of homeownership and public housing, social policy through the regulation of private rental markets is a neglected and underestimated field of social policy. This paper, therefore, presents unique new data on the development of private tenancy legislation through the binary coding...

This paper studies market segmentation that arises from the introduction of a price ceiling in the market for rental housing. When part of the market faces rent control, theory predicts an increase of free-market rents, a consequence of misallocation of households to housing units. We study a...

This paper studies market segmentation that arises from the introduction of a price ceiling in the market for rental housing. When part of the market faces rent control, theory predicts an increase of free-market rents, a consequence of misallocation of households to housing units. We study a...