“Airbnb in the City†: assessing short-term rental regulation in Bordeaux

Short-term rental platforms, led by Airbnb, have disrupted the tourism accommodation industry over the last decade. This disruption has sometimes come along with unwanted long lasting effects on the urban dynamics of cities, and it has encouraged policy-makers to intervene. However, little is known about how effective such interventions are. This paper empirically evaluates the impact Bordeaux’s regulation has had on STR activity through both a Differences-in-differences and a spatial discontinuity design. We find that regulation has had a reductive effect of over 316 rented days per month per district on average. This equates to over half of a pre-regulation standard deviation and 27 thousand nights spent per month in STRs across the city. However, the city’s attempts to limit activity stemming from commercial listings yields mixed results as compliant home-sharing listings also seem to have modified their behaviour. Additionally, analysis at the city border points towards the existence of potential spillover effects on the suburbs, further paving the way for discussion about the effectiveness of one-size-fits-all STR policy design.