Photo by Blacqbook/Getty Images
No.
Economists working on rent control are forced to adopt an attitude of weary resignation. The studies on it are so universally negative, the lamentable results so consistent, that reiterating them can feel both necessary and tiresome.
Yet rent control endures. The presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris both advocated it, and now Zohran Mamdani has made freezing rents a centerpiece of his New York City mayoral campaign. Rent control remains the great rejoinder to all of those who cherish the belief that evidence and experience can sway policy. The question is why rent control remains so popular despite its profoundly negative effects. The reason lies in the strange aspects of housing that make it different from every other good in America.
Continue reading the entire piece on The Free Press (paywall)
______________________
Judge Glock is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal.
Photo by Blacqbook/Getty Images