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'Renters Are Struggling': Economists Back Tenant-Led Push for Federal Rent Control
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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There are very few things almost every academic economist agrees on. One of the things that almost everyone agrees on is that rent control does not work. Im shocked they got 30 economists to sign on.
The following is apropos as it even addresses the specific policies of SF and NYC mentioned here. If you need to see a progressive voice go look at Emmanuel Saez as his work is what Sanders and Warren based their tax plans on.
https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/rent-control/
Rent control is a horrific idea. Over the long term is disincentivizes the construction of housing. If you want to bring the costs of housing down then you need to build more housing ideally multi family units not kore luxury housing which is what rent control creates incentives to build.
Are you an economist?
Or did you just see a supply and demand curve and think that's all there is to it?
If you studied economics beyond the 101 level, you'd know the supply and demand curve is a theoretical concept that doesn't actually exist in the real world because the requirements for it are impossible. Supply and demand most definitely exist, but it's more of a fuzzy force kind of thing not clean lines on a graph. Realistically, it's more like fuzzy splotches on the graph instead of clean lines.
And there are multiple levels to it as well. Cities have to compete with other cities to attract businesses and businesses would prefer to be in a city where they don't have to pay someone $100K per year to sweep the floors. Which might happen if that's the pay level required to live in a city. You could get into a yo-yo situation where a city becomes unaffordable, people and businesses leave, causing the rent prices to drop, attracting people an businesses back, causing it to by unaffordable again, etc, etc. This instability comes at an economic cost that's greater than the inefficiencies caused by rent control.
You see an economy isn't just one simple supply and demand curve. You might want to consider that economists might be aware of some factors you aren't aware of.
Aggregate supply and aggregate demand.
Boom. Roasted.
It's extremely difficult to get someone who only understands Econ 101 to grasp the idea of competing economic inefficiencies. Conservative think tanks have been on a rather successful crusade to ensure that de-regulation is only good. So, it's difficult to convince someone that higher taxes on "job creators" leads to a better, less expensive life for everybody else.
Yeah and aggregate demand is basically impossible to model because people be crazy.
And sure, rent control could cause issues in the long run, but in the long run we're all dead anyway. Other, bigger, problems will likely happen sooner than something like rent control having a significant economic impact.