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...

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...

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...

The design and effectiveness of rent controls and the role of large landlords in rental markets are both under active debate across Europe. This study uses a novel annual property-level dataset covering all tenancy registrations in Ireland Q2 2022-Q4 2024 to explore how landlord size interacts...

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...

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...

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 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 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 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...

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...

The design and effectiveness of rent controls and the role of large landlords in rental markets are both under active debate across Europe. This study uses a novel annual property-level dataset covering all tenancy registrations in Ireland Q2 2022-Q4 2024 to explore how landlord size interacts...

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...

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...

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...

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...