Mark Paul, Economists Hate Rent Control. Here’s Why They’re Wrong, The Am Prospect (May 16, 2023). Excerpt Below:
Half of Americans, namely homeowners, already have rent control. It’s time to expand it to everyone.
As any Econ 101 student can tell you, rent control is bad. This is because rent control is a price control, and price controls artificially distort well-functioning markets, resulting in a mismatch between supply and demand and the creation of the dreaded deadweight loss triangle all budding economist learn about. Although the goal of rent control is to create a more affordable housing sector, it in fact causes widespread shortages, leaving would-be renters high and dry while screwing landlords (the road to hell, so says the orthodox economist, is paved with good intentions). The real way to achieve a robust housing sector, with rentals available across the price spectrum, is the freely functioning competitive market, which will ensure sufficient supply of low-cost rentals are available to all seeking them. After all, supply always equals demand.
Given that this is the argument that appears in almost every introductory economics text (with the notable exception of the CORE Econ open-access book, which I use), it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of professional economists credit it. According to a poll of economists at prominent universities conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School, a whopping 81 percent of respondents opposed rent control (while only 2 percent supported it). As the Tufts University economist Gilbert Metcalf said recently, “opposition to rent control is something like an oath of office for the profession.”
Poverty Law 