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The end of Oslo's rent control: Impact on rent level

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  • Are Oust

    (NTNU Business School)

Abstract

Rent control provides an opportunity to study policymakers' ability to control prices on a large scale, in a sector that has significant welfare effects. We investigate the removal of rent control in the Norwegian capital Oslo in 1982 using a long dataset, with observations from 1970 to 2011. This allows us to exclude business-cycle fluctuations and ensure that the market and rent level are no longer affected by the rent control, and that rent has reached a new long-term equilibrium. We do not find that the removal of the rent control led to an increase in private rents in Oslo. It would appear that landlords' asking rent was equal to the market clearing rent in both the period with rent control (1970–1981) and that without rent control (1982–2011). The rent control in Oslo did not have the desired welfare distribution effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Are Oust, 2018. "The end of Oslo's rent control: Impact on rent level," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 443-458.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-17-00777
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    Cited by:

    1. O’Toole, Conor & Martinez-Cillero, Maria & Ahrens, Achim, 2021. "Price regulation, inflation, and nominal rigidity in housing rents," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    House price; Rent; Rent control; Price control; Oslo;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • H8 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues

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