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KRUGMAN_RENT

                                               November 11, 2021
                              
Paul Krugman inevitably comes up in discussions
of rent control.  Here are some of his remarks     
from 2000:                                         
                                                   [link]


    "The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood
    issues in all of economics, and-- among economists, anyway--
    one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American
    Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing
    that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of
    housing.' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case
    study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to
    illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents
    on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have
    nowhere to go-- and the absence of new apartment construction,
    despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls
    will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between
    tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more
    ingenious strategies to force tenants out-- what yesterday's
    article oddly described as 'free-market horror stories'-- and
    constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those
    strategies? Predictable." 
                                                                     
I'll make another prediction: if you give Krugman what he wants--
what he seems to want is zero regulation and let's just "let the
market decide!"-- within a few years he would be explaining why
he missed the fact that this would have negative effects, and
economists really should be paying attention to those oddly
subtle, hard to quantify factors that are stunningly obvious to
anyone who isn't an economist.
                                                                         
It wouldn't be the first time.                                          
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                  
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