Hacker News Reader

Comment by doctorpangloss | Hacker News Reader

haha i misread casual as causal, but i guess, here are the "accurate conclusions" you are looking for, that is to say, what does rent control cause, as opposed to the vibes and correlations people are talking about?

it's the "credibility revolution" and someone has won a nobel prize for it.

rent control causes limited mobility (read: displacement out of town) by 20 percent; it causes reduced rental housing supply by 15 percent:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20181289

rent control causes reduced property values:

https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/h...

View on HN

Did you write an entire comment by misreading "casual", the word I used, with "causal"? Otherwise, I have no idea how your reply relates to mine, as I didn't make any claims about the existence of such research.

You called his analysis "casual" so he gave you in-depth research? Otherwise, what was the purpose of calling him casual? Just drive-by insults?

Casual is a perfectly reasonable descriptor of economic conclusions based on vibes and anecdotes about apartment building in Montreal. I don't think it's reasonable to read it as an insult.

You don't need a study to tell you that if you make things more difficult and worse for landlords, the housing supply will decrease.

Courts actually need to do their jobs here for an optimal solution - e.g. it should be easy to punish shitty landlords AND easy to kick out shitty tenants.

It shouldn't take a 1+ year wait (as during COVID) to get a landlord-tenant court date to resolve issues.

The housing issue is multi-faceted however, so that's only 1 piece of the puzzle. But thanks to NIMBYs and building code overreach, it's literally impossible to build affordable housing that would rent at its own depreciation schedule.

> You don't need a study to tell you that if you make things more difficult and worse for landlords, the housing supply will decrease.

That doesn't need to be true. In post WW2 UK the government built lots of rental property. That increased the housing supply and hurt private landlords at the same time.

This is right. More supply is bad for landlords. In particular, housing developers and landlords are different economic actors!

You forgot to include the rest of the abstract:

"Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com