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== POV ==

[[Rent control in the United States]] and [[Rent control in New York]] contain significant arguments in favor of rent control. What happened to them? This page should summarize and cite both sides of the issue. The [[The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]] is cited to boldly claim that rent control doesn't work, and it just so happens that this 'encyclopedia' is published by conservative libertarian propaganda outfit the [[Liberty Fund]]. Not even close to Wikipedia's minimal standards of neutrality. --[[User:Dennis Bratland|Dennis Bratland]] ([[User talk:Dennis Bratland|talk]]) 19:14, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

:Agreed that this page should focus on the reasons people have put forward for instituting rent control, especially relative to biased sources working against any form of control. [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]] ([[User talk:Binksternet|talk]]) 19:50, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The last part of the Theory section is totally reliant on the Arnott paper, which is pretty explicitly a reaction against more mainstream economic points of view. (That mainstream view being represented, for example, [http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_6upyzeUpI73V5k0 here].) Currently, the reader gets the impression that opposition to rent control ended in the 90s, which is very much not the case. It would be nice to add some citations and discussion correcting that. [[User:Davatk|Davatk]] ([[User talk:Davatk|talk]]) 22:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
:Perhaps that should be edited in. The theory section is incredibly biased here to a minority view that most economists disagree with. It is fairly uncontroversial among economists that rent control is harmful <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/108.15.111.215|108.15.111.215]] ([[User talk:108.15.111.215|talk]]) 16:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
::I disagree. The studies that attempt to show "most" economists oppose rent control cherry pick whom they count as an economist, and which studies they want to cite. And they tend to be rather obtuse on the difference between the supply of affordable housing vs the supply of housing. The widespred use of rent control in advanced economies suggests that the subset of economists who oppose it are out of step with modern economic policy.<P>Criticisms of rent regulation or rent control should be based on specific facts, not [[argument from authority]] which tries to bolster a claim by appealing to some nebulous definition of "most economists", as if there were some consensus in that field comparable to the consensus in hard sciences. --[[User:Dennis Bratland|Dennis Bratland]] ([[User talk:Dennis Bratland|talk]]) 19:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
:::What I cited was a literature review of many studies. What you cited was one paper, and claimed that that is a more modern view. There is more evidence of negative effect from an entire literature review, and of consensus of research, than of one single study.[[User:Thuston94|Thuston94]] ([[User talk:Thuston94|talk]]) 03:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
::::Libertarians such as Mises and CATO hate rent control because it goes against their basic tenet of minimal government. Capitalists hate rent control because it limits profit made by landlords. The metrics that economists use to decry rent control are ridiculous: they assume that a city should flex to meet housing demand and accept a great deal of residential churn in the market, when a city might rather have residential stability and its benefits, such as less crime and greater pleasure from living among familiar neighbors. Rent control is not a simple question that can be answered by economists, who are in any case practitioners of a soft science lacking hard answers. Rather, rent control is a matter to be determined by citizens and city planners, with more factors at play than libertarians and capitalists would have us examine. So if economists are largely against rent control that does not mean Wikipedia must say rent control is bad. [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]] ([[User talk:Binksternet|talk]]) 05:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
::::[http://www.nycrgb.org/html/research/html_reports/collins.html Here's an enlightening paper] written by a rent control board attorney in NYC. [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]] ([[User talk:Binksternet|talk]]) 06:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
:::::Thuston is right. The Arnott piece is one guy explicitly expressing - in the abstract, no less - HIS opposition to the mainstream, so if you want to claim that the new view of "economists" as of the 1990s is Arnott's, you need some other source. Otherwise it's a [citation needed] claim . The econjournalwatch reference is a survey and DOES constitute support for the view that that is the mainstream view, especially in the context of Arnott AGREEING that this is the case. It's fine for YOU to think rent control is great, but the article should correctly represent the truth, which is NOT that economists suddenly changed their minds about it in the 1990s. Thus, I'm undoing the revert. [[User:Blogjack|Blogjack]] ([[User talk:Blogjack|talk]]) 10:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
::::::Whenever you hear someone saying their edits represent "[[Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth|The Truth]]" you can be pretty sure they're pushing a POV. The first obvious flaw with the summary study is that it is not a random poll of economists. It's a summary of selected research. What most economists think and what you get by choosing a set of published articles are two different things. There's no mechanism to make sure that journal articles magically represent a democratic sample of economists.<P>One solution to this would be to use better attribution to the sources making the claims, and as I said, cite specific criticisms of rent control rather than try to make sweeping claims that use argument from authority to persuade readers. This is a highly political subject, and so political persuasion should be left out except to cite notable individual opinions. You can de-politicise the subject by sticking to facts about rent control. --[[User:Dennis Bratland|Dennis Bratland]] ([[User talk:Dennis Bratland|talk]]) 15:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
:::::::I'm sorry if I was unclear, but I was UNDOING a POV change. The edit you're pushing says ''"The view developed among American economists in the 1990s ... is that "a well-designed rent control can be beneficial."'' and gives as a reference for this an article by Arnott. If you READ the article by Arnott he explicitly does NOT say that this is the mainstream view. He argues that it SHOULD be the mainstream view and that *perhaps* the view is changing in that direction but quite clearly puts forth this view as a CHALLENGE to the overwhelming mainstream view. In fact, THAT VERY REFERENCE - not just the one I was trying to put back in - starts out by providing evidence the overwhelming view among economists in the 1990s is that rent control is harmful. Here is the full study your edit references: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.9.1.99 and here are the first three sentences in it: ''"Economists have been virtually unanimous in their opposition to rent control. In a survey of economists' opinions, Alston, Kearl, and Vaughan (1992) asked a stratified random sample of 1990 American Economic Association members whether they "generally agree," "agree with provisions," or "generally disagree" with 40 statements related to economic theory and policy. The greatest degree of consensus on any question—93.5 percent—was agreement or qualified agreement with the statement: "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available."'' Arnott goes forth to claim that there's been a recent "wave (or at least a swell)" of revisionism that has made the criticisms more muted but does not put any numbers to it. He goes on to add "Is it time for the profession to reconsider its opposition to rent control?" which yet again establishes that in Arnott's view, the profession DOES still as a whole oppose rent control. The chief problem (with the edit) is that leading "The". To say that "THE view developed among American economists in the 1990s ... is that a well-designed rent control can be beneficial" suggests that MOST or ALL or even A SUBSTANTIAL NUMBER of economists started thinking this in the 1990s. Which is not true, and the very link referenced to support it SAYS it's not true, so it's also not SUPPORTED BY THE LITERATURE. The citation given doesn't verify it, and in fact verifies the exact opposite claim as does the citation I was trying to put (back) in. It would be less objectionable to position Arnott's claim as "A" view developed among SOME economists in the 1990s; then at least the cite would support what the text says...and that text was in the change you just re-reverted. [[User:Blogjack|Blogjack]] ([[User talk:Blogjack|talk]]) 17:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)


== opposition to rent control is mainstream ==
== opposition to rent control is mainstream ==

Revision as of 16:23, 17 August 2017


Archives (Index)

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opposition to rent control is mainstream

I like the edit of my addition, it's much clearer now, thank you. But the dislike of rent control is mainstream, and it has been for at least twenty years, from right-leaning to left-leaning, from Monetarists to Keynesians. Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Gregory Mankiw, even Gunnar Myrdal (who was socialist). There are several Nobel Laureates who are against rent control, and none are for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.208.188.68 (talk) 21:53, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(Wait, why is this talk page under Rent regulation, but the page I edited called Rent control?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.208.188.68 (talk) 22:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The only cited author who is for rent control is Arnott, and in his own articles he says that most economists oppose rent control, and have for a long time. He never says that support for rent control is mainstream, just that he thinks it deserves another look, given the more sophisticated tools we have. Specifically,

"Rent control has been presented to fifty years of economics students as an object lesson in bad policy." [1]
"Economists have been virtually unanimous in their opposition to rent control." [2]

He does say that he believes would be a ground-swell of younger economists who do support rent control, but that article was written in 1995, and that swell has never materialized. Mainstream economists are still against rent control.

(As an added note, Professor Timothy Taylor is the managing editor of the journal that published Arnott's 1995 article, and he is also against rent control.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.5.72 (talk • contribs)

Sure, many/most economists are against rent control, but the system is popular with enough voters and enough city planners to have it remain in force in various cities. The point I'm making is that economists are not the deciding factor.
When I look at economist arguments against rent control I immediately notice that they don't put a value on neighborhood stability or the quality of life for the residents. That is most likely why their rent control calculations are just exercises in futility, with virtually no effect on public policy. Binksternet (talk) 00:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And, when I saw this edit on Rent control I was ready to eat crow and admit that there is mainstream opposition to rent control. Yet it took only a momentary search to identify the sources cited as being highly partisan, as I added here. I find it telling that when you try to find a source supporting the "most economists oppose rent control" statement, you are forced to cite free market think tanks and outspoken Austrian school economists.

For me the bottom line is that rent control/regulation is in fact highly politicized. The only ones claiming there is "scientific" evidence here are themselves highly politicized actors. Which is fine. Wikipedia just needs to frame their political opinions as political opinions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Binksternet: You're right, rent control is ridiculously popular among people and politicians, and the article as a whole should reflect that. But in the theory section, I think it should be made clear that economists, specifically, are broadly opposed to the notion.
@Bratland: It is an incredibly politicized issue. But whether we think that most economists are politically biased (which they undoubtedly are) or not, I don't think that's for us to judge. There is a broad consensus among economists that rent control is harmful. This point of view is shared by even Keynesian, saltwater-economists like Mankiw and Krugman, and even the Nobel laureate socialist-democrat Myrdal.
I think that the statement is a good one, but let me know what you all think. "Most economists have historically been opposed to rent control, however most people and their elected politicians are in favor of them, and rent control remains a popular and common law." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.5.72 (talk) 01:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So Krugman is about the middle of the political spectrum, so that -- if verified -- establishes that opposition to rent control runs all the way from the right to the middle of the economic spectrum. Actual leftist economists are not counted, for some reason. Missing here: where is the actual citation from Paul Krugman? I'd like to know whether he criticized a particular rent control/regulation scheme, or condemned all possible such schemes as an Austrian school economist would likely do. We only have rightist sources claiming Krugman holds such and such position. Same for Myrdal et. al. Besides citations of Krugman, Myrdal, etc, the second thing we are missing is the full methodology for how "economists" were polled. At best, I'm seeing some surveys of a few United States or English speaking economists in a narrow subset of the field. Not a rigorous survey of all economists. How is "economist" defined? How would you carry out such a survey?

I'd just drop it. Economics is not climate science. What's the point of trying to take a chaotic, diverse field and use a lot of hand waving to coax a "consensus" view out of it? No such consensus view exists. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, Krugman says that rent control is bad, but he does not tell us what factors he set as having high value (probably not neighborhood stability), and he also says that economists are unimportant participants in the rent control question. I hold that this article about rent control should tell the reader what are the various opinions of economists, but briefly. The article should not be primarily a diatribe against rent control using arguments from economists. The proper balance will be achieved if some outstanding positions are mentioned, especially ones identified as widely held by economists of many stripes.
A consensus view isn't about what's most balanced on some political spectrum, it's just about what a vast majority thinks. I don't think we should be jumping into the waters of judging polls based on their methodology, that's getting into original research, and is really not what Wikipedia is about. Can anyone name economists who are notable in some manner and think rent control is a good thing? Are there any recipients of Clark medals or Nobels who think so? Even the one who is given an entire paragraph in this article said that economist opposition to rent control is virtually unanimous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.208.188.68 (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First Generation v. Second Generation

This article fails to make the distinction between 1st generation rent control (aka price caps and freezes) and second generation rent control, which limits the amount a landlord can raise rents (aka protection against predatory landlords). Economic consensus is that the two are so different as to barely even be related to one another in their effects on the market, but this article draws no distinction between what sort of rent control is being discussed.

It's such a huge issue it falls straight into being misleading and deceptive. Rent ceilings are incredibly different from limitations on price increases. By not discussing the different forms of rent control and their different impacts, you've crafted an article that teaches the reader pretty much nothing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.104.189.139 (talk) 15:33, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

POV fork

There's an obvious issue here between the article rent regulation ant rent control. For what I see, at one point there was a disagreement about the article's name, someone blanked an article instead of moving it and, even if a redirect was put in place, over time it was filled up again with content.

Rent control also lacks talk page (Talk:Rent control) and instead redirects here.

It seems to me that a disagreement over title led to a WP:POVFORK, with the argument that rent control are laws affecting only the price of renting while rent regulation has a wider scope. Can anyone provide sources for this? --Langus (t) 21:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Rent control redirected here. --Langus TxT 04:41, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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