Is rent control actually a "bad idea"?

A lot of people say that rent control is one of the few economic policies we can confidently say is objectively bad. They say this because 99% of economists agree that its a bad policy. This hasn't really phased me, because from my layman's POV, 99% of economists are wrong about most things. I have read a couple of studies criticizing rent control and then I read a study criticizing those criticisms. The latter seemed much more convincing as it pointed out sever methodological flaws with with the former. Mainly, it appears as though most rent control critiques attribute 100% of the rise in rents to the enactment of rent control, and ignore the fact that rent in big cities would increase without rent control as well. I want to hear what an economist without brain worms has to say about this. I did a quick google search beforehand and it doesn't look like you've addressed this before.


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  • Chayce Rodriguez
    published this page in Ask Prof. Wolff 2019-10-31 18:10:58 -0400

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