Using detailed location-specific criminal incident-level data, we find that sudden rent decontrol in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995 caused overall crime to fall by 16 percent—approximately 1,200 crimes annually. We estimate [...]
Second generation rent control seeks to prevent negative quantity effects by exempting newly built units. The artificially lowered rent in the controlled segment makes renting attractive for households that would [...]
In many global cities the rental housing market is partially regulated. We document that the Paris housing market is dual: a flexible rent sector coexists with a large controlled rent [...]
Measuring how rent-controlled landlords change their housing supply in response to rent increases is difficult, because new construction is automatically exempt. This paper explores evictions as a barometer for landlords' [...]
News and Commentary SB 50 has been postponed until January 2020. The bill was postponed and will likely undergo revisions, after fierce opposition from neighborhood supervisors and other local groups. [...]
Housing affordability has become the main policy challenge for most large cities in the world. Zoning, rent control, housing vouchers, and tax credits are the main levers employed by policy [...]
In the U.S., nearly 60% of recently built single-family houses, and 80% of houses in new subdivisions, are part of a homeowners association (HOA). We construct the first near-national map [...]
News and Commentary The Mercury News published an interesting letter to the editor in response to an article on Bay Area housing. The author argues that the opposition to current [...]
Rent Check A year after its predecessor died in committee, California's SB 50 passed two committees. In order to garner enough votes, it combined with another bill, SB 4, a [...]
California’s SB 50, which would upzone areas near job- and transit-rich areas (and, consequently, most of the major urban areas in the state), passed committee twice. The bill cleared the [...]