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...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023-2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

We study how rent control and housing rationing shape housing investment and market tightness in Geneva using a VAR on annual data (1994-2022) with generalized impulse responses and Granger causality. We find that housing rationing functions as abinding quantity restriction as it precedes a...

Tenancy rent control limits rent increases for sitting tenants while allowing market resets at vacancy. When demand grows or household composition differs across segments, spillovers raise rents in the unregulated market. We study its general equilibrium effects in Switzerland, where a...

Between 1950 and 2023, the housing cost burden - approximated by the proportion of total household consumption expenditure spent on housing, water, electricity and fuel - has risen almost steadily in many countries around the world. First, this trend can be explained by substantial improvements...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023-2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023–2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

We study how rent control and housing rationing shape housing investment and market tightness in Geneva using a VAR on annual data (1994-2022) with generalized impulse responses and Granger causality. We find that housing rationing functions as abinding quantity restriction as it precedes a...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...