Talk:Rent control

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This article requires attention for the following reason(s): It's just generally a mess What are the solutions to this issue? This article doesn't make its stance on this clear

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Article might not be founded in evidence

https://jwmason.org/slackwire/considerations-on-rent-control/

Downsides about rent control in this article appear to contradicts with this completely. Link here says that the arguments against rent control echo arguments against minimum wage increases.

The main conclusions from this literature are, first, that rent regulation is effective in limiting rent increases, although how effective it is depends on the specifics of the law. Vacancy decontrol in particular may significantly weaken rent control. Second, there is no evidence that rent regulations reduce the overall supply of housing. They, may, however, reduce the supply of rental housing if it is easy for landlords to convert apartments to condominiums or other non-rental uses. This suggests that limitations on these kinds of conversions may be worth exploring. Third, in addition to their effect on the overall level of rents, rent regulations also play an important role in promoting neighborhood stability and protecting long-term tenants.

--It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Arguments for?

I believe that this article in its current state mainly reflects the views of a single or handful of users, and not the community as a whole. Arguments for rent control should be considered in this article, paired with criticisms of said arguments. Likewise criticisms of arguments against rent control should be included too. For instance LeftyGreenMario's point. See more here:

https://therift.eu/index.php/2019/10/01/for-or-against-rent-control/

https://archive.curbed.com/2019/10/15/20915405/rent-control-does-it-work-2020-election

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99646/rent_control._what_does_the_research_tell_us_about_the_effectiveness_of_local_action_1.pdf

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/11/rent-control-housing-crisis-affordability-supply ^{— Unsigned, by: 70.176.8.70 / talk}

Top-down Rewrite

This article was an abject disaster, much like, according to its Libertarian original author, rent control itself, so I completely rewrote it (the article, not the policy) while carefully laundering and recontextualizing all of their citations. I was feeling a bit lazy, though, so I didn't dig up any of my own, even if some things, like the summary of NYC rent stabilization, should be pretty easy. I didn't feel comfortable removing any of the original citations without having the chance to review them myself, and a lot of them are print books (which, admittedly, could probably be linked via Google Books). Some other, more audacious editor can trim them down as necessary. The finished product could also use significantly more snark. ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 02:47, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Funfact, rent control is one of the two most despised subjects among economists. GeeJayK (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I don't doubt that. ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 03:10, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I was always kinda sketchy with this one and was asking for more opinion. I'm happy someone stepped in. What was the issue with the previous state? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 03:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

The previous version lacked basic information about what rent control even is, and it included unironic citations from the likes of the Cato Institute. In general, the previous version of the article was kind of a one-sided screed that isolated a single aspect of the problem and misconstrued it as the underlying cause.

FWIW someone did a random drive-by reversion of my rewrite, which was cute. ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 03:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

And that "drive by" editor can read talkpages. And for the record, I have retracted that in my response to your complaint on my talkpage, so there's no need to be so acerbic in your comments. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 03:42, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, apology accepted, and I will assume good faith on your part from now on! (FWIW I did get warned on my talkpage that my username looks spammy.)

(To both you and LeftyGreenMario) I should clarify that reorganizing the article with substantially the same content is more than anything a starting point, since I didn't do much in terms of evaluating or adding sources (and reorganizing an article's existing content is less contentious than deleting large parts of it). Please feel free to add anything from the other sources linked here on the talk page. Also feel free to be more judgmental about the existing citations, i.e. beyond merely naming them in the text and linking to their RW articles, lol. ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 03:53, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@TMqWQfNP9zx2FbrA If you wanna be renamed, you may request it here. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 03:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I've seen text about consequences of rent control, it's just a description of what's going on but doesn't go into benefits or negatives. One one hand, curbing landlordism sounds good but the amount of rental units dropping also doesn't sound good. It's just statement of facts but I like to see implications to see if rent control works in tandem with adherents' goals or not. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 05:05, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Yes, the approach I took to reorganizing the article was to break it down into three basic sections: (1) what rent control is or what it entails, (2) consequences and effects of rent control (beyond, you know, cheaper rent), and (3) alternatives to rent control. For part (2), yes, it would be useful to discuss the pros and cons of each indirect effect, but because many of the effects are a mix of pro and con (or are really down to value judgements), it seems like using pros and cons as the top-level categories (rather than nesting the pros and cons under a list of the effects themselves) is a tidier approach that is less likely to conceal value judgements. It does seem like explicitly listing the goals of rent control could be a good category, perhaps combined with the list of components. And a section on the effectiveness of those goals could be helpful, either combine with the list of goals or after the list of external consequences. Here's a potential expanded outline:

• [Article Introduction]
• Defining Rent Control
  • Different Names That Generally Refer to the Same Thing
  • Goals of Rent Control
  • Components of Rent Control
• Indirect Effects of Rent Control
  • [List of Effects]
    • Factual Description of [Effect] (doesn't need a heading)
    • Pros of [Effect] (doesn't need a heading)
    • Cons of [Effect] (doesn't need a heading)
  • [List Continues]
• Mitigations and Alternatives
  • Maybe "Rent Control" Isn't The Best Name?
    • [List of Policies Usually Combined with Rent Control] (doesn't need headings)
  • Comparison with (Supposedly) Deregulated Housing Markets
    • Houston, For One
    • [We Should Probably Have Examples From Developing Countries, Too]
• Effectiveness of Rent Control (basically just a summary and conclusion)
  • Effectiveness Relative to Its Stated Goals
  • Positive Effects Balanced Against Negative Effects

What do you think of this outline? Please feel free to suggest an alternative variation! (Also note that I reset the indentation, since I don't feel like figuring out how to combine colons with a hierarchical list.) ImGoogleableIfYouWantToStalkMe (talk) 16:52, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah it's a step above the previous state. I say, have at it. If there are mixed effects between pros and cons, feel free to experiment beyond the two list. Maybe devote a section to overall effect, while pros and cons just are a neat starter list, but not a substitute for explanation. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:08, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Gonna be quite honest here, you guys are going to have a hard time finding many pros of rent control. It's not that they don't exist, but it's not a very good policy overall because of its tradeoffs. You may be able to find a few places where it actually worked, but as someone who works and study evaluations of public policies this kind of qualitative approach is not my cup of tea. That being said, I won't have time to help in a rewrite nor in the discussions, so feel free to discart my opinion. GeeJayK (talk) 00:39, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Rachmanism

There should be some mention of Peter Rachman and his ilk - are there US equivalents? Anna Livia (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

This article sucks and needs to be scrapped and rewritten

I was actually flabbergasted by how poorly written and sourced this article is. Unironically siting the Cato Institute as a reliable source on why rent control is bad is like citing Bloomberg as a good source on economic policy and journalism. Along with the multiple spelling errors, grammatical issues, and other random bullshit, I hate that I read this article and that it's on this wiki. Get better sources, learn how to spell and read a book. If you seriously want to spend 8 paragraphs relentlessly bashing rent control and only have "Oh, but vouchers are cool." as an afterthought and think that somehow makes your article good, you're wrong. "The Cato institute is sad because there's less landlords." is not something that should be on a Rationalwiki page as a GOOD SOURCE. --Ozzyboo (talk) 20:54, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Ozzyboo, You could try fixing it yourself, or if you're disinclined you could add the {{Revise}} template to the top of the page. The main contributor to the page is no longer active here. Bongolian (talk) 21:47, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Bongolian, Sure thing, thanks. --Ozzyboo (talk) 22:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure GeeJayK is the one who (re)introduced the edits to turn the article back into the state I found huge issues with a while ago, even though me and another user had a talk page agreement rewriting this article. It was actually rewritten to a state where it wasn't as relentlessly bashing rent control.[1] BTW this article DID cite Bloomberg unironically lmao. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 01:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMario What? GeeJayK (talk) 02:28, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm frustrated, I thought we were at a state in the article that seemed satisfactory, but I saw your edits and I didn't really like those but couldn't put my finger on it so I didn't dispute, maybe thought you were correct and I had just incorrect bad vibes but now someone else disputed it.... --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:36, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I didn't revert anything on this article, what are you talking about? If you want actual literature on the subject, you just have to ask.

An Econometric Analysis of Rent Control

Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?

Rent controls and rental housing quality: A note on the effects of New York City's old controls

The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control

If rent control is correct, then supply and demand are wrong. If they're wrong, then everything we know about microeconomics is wrong. GeeJayK (talk) 02:50, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

The second topic doesn't really seem to support what you're arguing. In fact, it reiterates my earlier share here[2]

Among economists, rent regulation seems be in similar situation as the minimum wage was 20 years ago. At that time, most economists took it for granted that raising the minimum wage would reduce employment. Textbooks said that it was simple supply and demand — if you raise the price of something, people will buy less of it. But as more state and local governments raised minimum wages, it turned out to be very hard to find any negative effect on employment. This was confirmed by more and more careful empirical studies. Today, it is clear that minimum wages do not reduce employment. And as economists have worked to understand why not, this has improved our theories of the labor market.

Rent regulation may be going through a similar evolution today. You may still see textbooks saying that as a price control, rent regulation will reduce the supply of housing. But as the share of Americans renting their homes has increased, more and more jurisdictions are considering or implementing rent regulation. This has brought new attention from economists, and as with the minimum wage, we are finding that the simple supply-and-demand story doesn’t capture what happens in the real world.

The revisionism on rent control that I have described in this paper is strikingly similar to the revisionism that has occurred concerning the effects of the minimum wage (Card and Krueger, forthcoming 1994) that, contrary to predictions based on competitive models or the labor market, recent increases in state minimum wages have not had a discernible impact on employment. The similarity of the theoretical revisions is not too surprising, even though the rent control and minimum wage literatures have evolved independently, since both are based on the contract and search literatures. But that both bodies of empirical work have come to similar qualitative conclusions is remarkable.

In this paper, my primary theme was that modern, second-generation rent controls are so different that they should be judged largely independently of the experience with first-generation controls. My secondary theme was that the theoretical analysis of second-generation rent controls should take into account that the housing market is imperfectly competitive. When this is done, whether such controls are harmful or helpful depends on the particular package of regulations adopted, which is the outcome of a political process. Thus, second-generation controls should be judged on the empirical evidence and, since the programs are so varied, on a case-by-case basis. My reading of the empirical evidence is that many of the claimed effects of second-generation controls are imperceptible. And those effects that are perceptible have ambiguous efficiency and welfare implications.

Economists appreciate the virtues of free markets more than the average citizen. The knee-jerk reaction of almost every well-trained economist to price controls therefore provides balance in policy debate. Nevertheless, the case against second-generation rent controls is so weak that economists should at least soften their opposition to them. A degree of revisionism is certainly in order.

This doesn't justify the really scathing quotes at the beginning of the page that immediately sets RationalWiki's stance on blanket opposing rent control nor the phrase "Due to the overwhelming evidence of the disastrous consequences of rent control" which you added[3], which I claim you practically reverted to an old state of the page because it has very similar scathing appraisal of rent control[4]. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 03:09, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the article, I know, it's the only peer reviwed article I know that supports (to some extent) rent control, although it's 30 years old IIRC. That's why I put it here, to have at least one source that support to some extent your point (though opinions on rent control didn't change since it was published). Regarding my entry, are you complaining that the article is biased'? GeeJayK (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I have a couple of problems with this article, although they're a bit unrelated to whether rent control is good or bad. The thing with economics is there's always hidden assumptions about how the world should run. For example, despite somewhat going over government housing in the first section, the article doesn't seem interested in advocating that as a solution. The second section seems to operate under a few assumptions, such as single-family houses being the natural order of things and how apartments and similar dense-living spaces should only be temporary housing, things which don't necessarily hold true of all cultures. There's also a weird section about how rent control decreases landlordism, which doesn't take a clear stance on whether that's a good or bad thing and makes me wonder if it was just supposed to be self-evidently bad. There's also that this issue is very closely related to the issue of unsustainable suburban sprawling, but the article barely goes into detail about that. Perhaps part of the disconnect is that the article acknowledges that there are situations when rent control can work, i.e. with significant government investment in housing, but spends most of its time trashing rent control in the model of a free-market economy. Overall, these problems result in the article being pretty confusing and honestly not taking a clear stance: is the solution that we need more government housing, we need less government regulation, we need to change the ways cities are built to be more dense, or something else? The article really doesn't make that clear. Plutocow (talk) 03:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think the sources support the bias. One citation a supposed consensus is apparently just a textbook. The other citation, is, well, I can't access it for the time being but it's a piece from New York Times. Another one is a bloomberg article. And there's that Cato citation which at least two users found problematic now? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 03:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to remove the Cato Institute citation if you want to.Regarding the consensus Wikipedia has nine sources on that.

I in fact agree with Plutocow that the article is problematic, and I don't have time to fix it (and I'm not very qualified on urban economics either, though I believe I know a bit more than you guys). GeeJayK (talk) 03:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

That being said, my personal opinion to all the questions they've made is yes. A solution is more government housing, less regulation and denser cities. GeeJayK (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Sure. I want to really not want to question a consensus of experts either since I'm ignorant as hell (also I admit this conflicts with my ideology; I'm more for government regulations particularly consumer protection generally), I'll need time to process all the information. But in the meantime, those nine sources are disputed in the Wikipedia talk pages. Basically, the sources amount to general textbook citations, think tank piece, opinion articles (one is called "The New York Times Posts Pro-Rent-Control Cringe" from reason.com which I suppose it can be useful if it makes cogent points BUT shouldn't be the evidence for a consensus), and no studies (but the user advancing the claim is also making me doubt them since they complained about being "persecuted and blocked"). "The sources given are mostly an ad-hoc selection: they are a sampling of sources arguing that there is agreement on rent control without recognition of the existence of a substantial contrary literature. This is not how we write articles if we respect WP:N."; the post as made last year in April, not sure if much has changed since then. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 03:46, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Beyond the fact that the sources listed for "consensus" are disputed as such, this article has issues beyond that. It's really confusing to read. At times it feels like it's just regurgitating free-market capitalist talking points verbaitim and then jumping to arguments socdems would make. It's so weird and it feels incomplete and not cohesive. Reading it makes me feel less like I'm on rationalwiki and more like I'm on an "unbiased wiki website." This isn't a problem unique to this article on RationalWiki but it is the most egregious example of tone shift I've seen so far. I don't have the time to rewrite it, nor the knowledge or confidence, but this article needs to be rewritten. --Ozzyboo (talk) 16:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)