Moderate Rent Control: Sixty Cities Over 20 Years

ABSTRACT:

Studies of rent control have utilized limited samples of cities over short timespans. Many are limited in value because of crude or poorly specified statistical analyses and a majority tend to focus on the most extreme form of rent control, that of New York City, and ignore more typical kinds. This study addresses these shortcomings by analyzing them over a 20-year timespan and using regression analysis which specifies the independent variable rent control as both a nominal and an ordinal variable. This is the largest sample using regression analysis over so long a period. The authors give an overview of the impacts of moderate rent control in 60 New Jersey cities. Their regression analysis reveals that moderate rent control laws in New Jersey have had only a small impact.