Word: ares
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Since people are not wont to let go of rent-controlled apartments once they get them, those who need to move frequently--that is, the working poor--are doubly screwed.
Unfortunately, the people who cannot find housing are all frequently the poor, even though rent control supposedly equalizes the ability of rich and poor to compete for housing.
The point is that there will always be fewer rent-controlled apartments than there are people who want them. The wealthy and well-placed have the ability and resources to find the rent-controlled apartments. The low-income renters who really need cheap housing don't.
Moreover, when only part of the housing market is rent-controlled, the costs of the system are pushed onto tenants of unregulated apartments, who must pay all the more to compete in the market for an artificially scarce good.
This economic logic is almost universally accepted. Even Nobel prizewinning, liberal economist James Tobin agrees that rent controls are "very inefficient." He was quoted in The Washington Monthly as saying, "The only difference between liberal and conservative economists is that conservatives would like to do away with them without putting...