The Left wants to cure the city’s high housing costs by expropriating 225,000 apartments owned by large real estate corporations.
The Far-Left Wins Berlin’s Election on the Promise of Seizing Private Apartments
The Far-Left Wins Berlin’s Election on the Promise of Seizing Private Apartments
24 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: Germany, rent control
A rent control experiment
13 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of information, economics of regulation, law and economics, property rights Tags: offsetting behavior, rent control, unintended consequences
Some Links
10 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, income redistribution, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
TweetChristine Rosen uncovers evidence of the pathetic appeal of the DSA. Two slices: But one aspect of the DSA’s appeal has been too often overlooked, particularly by conservative critics: its appeal as a form of instant community for a generation that often lacks one. DSA supporters are a highly homogenous group: 85 percent of DSA…
Some Links
Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap
02 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, law and economics, property rights Tags: rent control
Rent control is in the news again. Check out my new website, Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap. Here is just one bit: Norway abolished its rent control in 1982, and the economist Are Oust realized the newspapers had been quietly recording the whole experiment. He collected housing classifieds from Oslo’s Aftenposten from 1970 to 2008 and watched…
Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
28 Jun 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, income redistribution, law and economics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: rent control
I’ve written several columns (here, here, here, here, and here) detailing the folly of rent control. And now that New York City’s dilettante socialist mayor has proposed to expand rent control, I thought about doing the same thing. But I noticed so many clever comments on Twitter/X that I decided on a different approach. Here […]
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
“Evictions are an Act of Policy Violence”: Pressley and Democrats Introduce Eviction Reform Legislation
15 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, income redistribution, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: regressive left, rent control
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) joined fellow Democrats last week in calling for the passage of the Housing Emergencies Lifeline Program…
“Evictions are an Act of Policy Violence”: Pressley and Democrats Introduce Eviction Reform Legislation
Michelle Tandler on NYC rent control
28 Jan 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
This is what I’m seeing: + 2.4 million rent-controlled apartments in a city with a massive housing shortage and 1.4% vacancy rate. + A huge % of these tenants are wealthy, white boomers using the units as pieds-a-terres while they spend their weekends and summers elsewhere. + Meanwhile, the government is using rent control to…
Michelle Tandler on NYC rent control
A tale of two cities and rent control
23 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, econometerics, economics of regulation, law and economics, market efficiency, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
WSJ: What the Twin Cities Tell Us About Fixing the Housing CrisisThe Natural Experiment: In 2022, St. Paul enacted one of the strictest rent-control regimes in the country. The ordinance capped annual rent increases at 3% for most apartments, even empty ones. It didn’t adjust for inflation. … Across the Mississippi River, Minneapolis steered clear of rent…
A tale of two cities and rent control
Rent Control Creates Ghost Apartments
22 Dec 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, urban economics Tags: rent control
Adam Lehodey writing at City Journal: In New York City, making a profit on real estate has become increasingly difficult. Rent-stabilization laws built on the mantra that “housing is a human right,” a dysfunctional housing court, and myriad other interventions have driven thousands of units off the market, giving rise to the phenomenon of New York’s “ghost…
Rent Control Creates Ghost Apartments
Argentine Rental Market Natural Experiment
24 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics of regulation, growth disasters, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, regulation, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: Argentina, rent control
One of Argentine President Milei’s radical reforms was to “take a chainsaw” to rent control laws. Argentina had had some of the most restrictive rent control regimes ever. All of that was abandoned almost over night. Many media outlets noted with glee that rents fell dramatically. Even most economists were surprised by how much supply…
Argentine Rental Market Natural Experiment
Mamdani’s unworkable proposal for NYC-owned grocery stores
31 Jul 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: economics of socialism, regressive left, rent control, useful idiots
Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to be the next mayor of NYC, as he proffered a number of campaign promises that delighted progressives young and old. (This is besides his pro-Palestinian stand on the Gaza war, which is irrelevant to his actions as NYC mayor but still delighted the benighted.) Here are a few of […]
Mamdani’s unworkable proposal for NYC-owned grocery stores
The Affordable Rent Act
22 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
Bloomberg: Moraal is among the growing number of Dutch people struggling to find a rental property after a new law designed to make homes more affordable ended up aggravating a housing shortage. Aiming to protect low-income tenants, the government in July imposed rent controls on thousands of homes, introducing a system of rating properties based on […]
The Affordable Rent Act
Rent controls make many tenants worse off in the Netherlands
10 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: rent control
Rent controls have created shortages of housing, every time and in every place that they have been tried. In the latest futile attempt to create working rent controls, the Netherlands has worsened its housing shortage. As Bloomberg reported recently (paywalled, but try this alternative link):Two years ago, Nine Moraal and her two children moved into a…
Rent controls make many tenants worse off in the Netherlands
Price Controls Reflect Utter Economic Insanity
25 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election, price controls, regressive left, rent control
TweetIn the print edition of tomorrow’s (Friday’s) Wall Street Journal, Richard McKenzie and I explain some of the many unintended ill-consequences of the price controls proposed by Kamala Harris. A slice: Price-control proponents often justify their position by claiming that grocery stores are monopolies. They point to a fantasy economic theory that purports to show how…
Price Controls Reflect Utter Economic Insanity
The Minimum Wage, Rent Control, and Vacancies or Who Searches?
31 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, econometerics, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, minimum wage, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, unemployment, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, regressive left, rent control
In an interesting new paper Federal Reserve economists Marianna Kudlyak, Murat Tasci and Didem Tüzemen look at what happens to job vacancy postings when the minimum wage increases. The vacancy data in our analysis come from the job openings data from the Conference Board as a part of its Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) data series. […]
The Minimum Wage, Rent Control, and Vacancies or Who Searches?
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