Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/09/2024
11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Join us today for our Weekly Seminar Series!

Today, Wednesday, September 4, 11:30am – 12:30pm in KTH 334, Shahar Rotberg joins us from the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation. He is a Senior Specialist researching housing, inequality, taxation, & tax evasion. His talk today is titled “The Welfare Consequences of Rent Controls”, a current working paper alongside Lin Zhang.

Abstract

Unit control and tenancy control are prevalent rent regulations that limit rent hikes with exemptions. Unit control offers immediate discounts but creates shortages, resulting in controlled units being allocated via lotteries. Tenancy control allows landlords to adjust rents upon tenant turnover, but generates no shortages, because a price mechanism allocates controlled units. Integrating both policies into a quantitative general equilibrium model of housing calibrated to Toronto, we find that tenancy control yields greater welfare than unit control, and the degree of tenancy control maximizing welfare is 65%. Lastly, moving from tenancy control to full decontrol or full control would reduce welfare.

Connect with Shahar through his website!