IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/661.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tenancy Rent Control and Credible Commitment in Maintenance

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Arnott

    (Boston College)

  • Elizaveta Shevyakhova

Abstract

Under tenancy rent control, rents are regulated within a tenancy but not between tenancies. This paper investigates the effects of tenancy rent control on housing quality, maintenance, and rehabilitation. Since the discounted revenue received over a fixed-duration tenancy depends only on the starting rent, intuitively the landlord has an incentive to spruce up the unit between tenancies in order to 'show' it well, but little incentive to maintain the unit well during the tenancy. The paper formalizes this intuition, and presents numerical examples illustrating the efficiency loss from this effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Arnott & Elizaveta Shevyakhova, 2007. "Tenancy Rent Control and Credible Commitment in Maintenance," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 661, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:661
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp660.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Inge Mayeres & Stef Proost, 1997. "Optimal Tax and Public Investment Rules for Congestion Type of Externalities," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(2), pages 261-279, June.
    2. Svarer, Michael & Rosholm, Michael & Munch, Jakob Roland, 2005. "Rent control and unemployment duration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2165-2181, December.
    3. Fu, Shihe, 2007. "Smart Cafe Cities: Testing human capital externalities in the Boston metropolitan area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 86-111, January.
    4. Richard Arnott & Russell Davidson & David Pines, 1983. "Housing Quality, Maintenance and Rehabilitation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(3), pages 467-494.
    5. Arnott, Richard & Kraus, Marvin, 1998. "When are anonymous congestion charges consistent with marginal cost pricing?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 45-64, January.
    6. Arnott, Richard, 1989. "Housing Vacancies, Thin Markets, and Idiosyncratic Tastes," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 5-30, February.
    7. Ian W. H. Parry & Antonio Bento, 2001. "Revenue Recycling and the Welfare Effects of Road Pricing," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(4), pages 645-671, December.
    8. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1981. "The economics of staggered work hours," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 349-364, May.
    9. Henderson, J V, 1974. "The Sizes and Types of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 640-656, September.
    10. Wheaton, William C, 1990. "Vacancy, Search, and Prices in a Housing Market Matching Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1270-1292, December.
    11. Jos van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld & Peter Nijkamp & Jos van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld & Peter Nijkamp, 2004. "Job Moving, Residential Moving, and Commuting: A Search Perspective," Chapters, in: Location, Travel and Information Technology, chapter 11, pages 223-246, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Arnott, Richard & Shevyakhova, Elizaveta, 2014. "Tenancy rent control and credible commitment in maintenance," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 72-85.
    13. Shihe Fu & Stephen L. Ross, 2007. "Wage Premia in Employment Clusters: Does Worker Sorting Bias Estimates?," Working papers 2007-26, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2009.
    14. Basu, Kaushik & Emerson, Patrick M, 2000. "The Economics of Tenancy Rent Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 939-962, October.
    15. Small, Kenneth A. & Gomez-Ibanez, Jose A., 1999. "Urban transportation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 46, pages 1937-1999, Elsevier.
    16. Sweeney, James L., 1974. "Housing unit maintenance and the mode of tenure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 111-138, June.
    17. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2003. "Geography, Industrial Organization, and Agglomeration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 377-393, May.
    18. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2004. "Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 48, pages 2063-2117, Elsevier.
    19. Kenneth A. Small & Clifford Winston & Jia Yan, 2005. "Uncovering the Distribution of Motorists' Preferences for Travel Time and Reliability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1367-1382, July.
    20. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521171960, October.
    21. Raess, Pascal & von Ungern-Sternberg, Thomas, 2002. "A model of regulation in the rental housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 475-500, July.
    22. William C. Wheaton, 1978. "Price-Induced Distortions in Urban Highway Investment," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 622-632, Autumn.
    23. Richard Arnott, 1995. "Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 99-120, Winter.
    24. Arnott, Richard & Davidson, Russell & Pines, David, 1986. "Spatial aspects of housing quality, density, and maintenance," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 190-217, March.
    25. Richard Arnott & An Yan, 2000. "The Two-Mode Problem: Second-Best Pricing and Capacity," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 474, Boston College Department of Economics.
    26. Vickrey, William S, 1969. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 251-260, May.
    27. Mills, Edwin S & Ferranti, David M, 1971. "Market Choices and Optimum City Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 340-345, May.
    28. Hubert, Franz, 1995. "Contracting with costly tenants," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 631-654, October.
    29. Mark Frankena, 1975. "Alternative Models of Rent Control," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 12(3), pages 303-308, October.
    30. Boadway, Robin & Harris, Richard, 1977. "A characterization of piecemeal second best policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 169-190, October.
    31. Richard Arnott & Tilmann Rave & Ronnie Schöb, 2005. "Alleviating Urban Traffic Congestion," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012197, April.
    32. Edward L. Glaeser & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2003. "The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1027-1046, September.
    33. Rothenberg, Jerome & Galster, George C. & Butler, Richard V. & Pitkin, John R., 1991. "The Maze of Urban Housing Markets," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226729510, September.
    34. Zinde-Walsh, Victoria, 1995. "ESTIMATION AND INFERENCE IN ECONOMETRICSRussell Davidson and James G. MacKinnon Oxford University Press, 1993," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 631-635, June.
    35. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Human capital externalities in cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 51, pages 2243-2291, Elsevier.
    36. Arnott, Richard J., 1979. "Unpriced transport congestion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 294-316, October.
    37. Verhoef, Erik T., 2002. "Second-best congestion pricing in general networks. Heuristic algorithms for finding second-best optimal toll levels and toll points," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 707-729, September.
    38. John S. Chipman, 1970. "External Economies of Scale and Competitive Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 347-385.
    39. Wilson, John D., 1983. "Optimal road capacity in the presence of unpriced congestion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 337-357, May.
    40. Guasch, J. Luis & Marshall, Robert C., 1987. "A theoretical and empirical analysis of the length of residency discount in the rental housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 291-311, November.
    41. Munch, Jakob Roland & Svarer, Michael, 2002. "Rent control and tenancy duration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 542-560, November.
    42. Lawrence B. Smith, 2003. "Intertenancy Rent Decontrol in Ontario," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(2), pages 213-225, June.
    43. Iwata, Shinichiro, 2002. "The Japanese Tenant Protection Law and Asymmetric Information on Tenure Length," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 125-151, June.
    44. Arnott, Richard & de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 1993. "A Structural Model of Peak-Period Congestion: A Traffic Bottleneck with Elastic Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 161-179, March.
    45. repec:bla:econom:v:70:y:2003:i:278:p:223-232 is not listed on IDEAS
    46. repec:bla:scandj:v:99:y:1997:i:2:p:261-79 is not listed on IDEAS
    47. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2004. "Evidence on the nature and sources of agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2119-2171, Elsevier.
    48. Kanemoto, Yoshitsugu, 1977. "Cost-benefit analysis and the second best land use for transportation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 483-503, October.
    49. Wilson, Paul W., 1988. "Wage variation resulting from staggered work hours," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 9-26, July.
    50. Sweeney, James L, 1974. "Quality, Commodity Hierarchies, and Housing Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 147-167, January.
    51. Marks, Denton, 1984. "The effects of partial-coverage rent control on the price and quantity of rental housing," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 360-369, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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).
    2. McCollum, Meagan & Milcheva, Stanimira, 2023. "How ‘bad’ is renter protection for institutional investment in multifamily housing?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(PA).
    3. Arnott, Richard & Shevyakhova, Elizaveta, 2014. "Tenancy rent control and credible commitment in maintenance," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 72-85.
    4. Yanke Dai & Yangfei Xu, 2022. "Cheating under Regulation: Evidence from “Yin-and-Yang” Contracts on Beijing’s Housing Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-29, October.
    5. Blair Jenkins, 2009. "Rent Control: Do Economists Agree?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6(1), pages 73-112, January.
    6. Brian Asquith, 2019. "Do Rent Increases Reduce the Housing Supply Under Rent Control? Evidence from Evictions in San Francisco," Upjohn Working Papers 19-296, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    7. Clarke, Dylan R. & Gold, Daniel E., 2024. "The effects of residential landlord–tenant laws: New evidence from Canadian reforms using census data," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    8. Thomschke, Lorenz, 2016. "Distributional price effects of rent controls in Berlin: When expectation meets reality," CAWM Discussion Papers 89, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    9. Zhao, Weihua, 2022. "The long-run effects of minimum lot size zoning on housing redevelopment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    10. Miguel-Ángel López García, 2023. "Controles de alquileres," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 246(3), pages 165-206, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arnott, Richard, 2007. "Congestion tolling with agglomeration externalities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 187-203, September.
    2. Arnott, Richard & Rowse, John, 2009. "Downtown parking in auto city," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-14, January.
    3. Zhang, Wenjia & Kockelman, Kara M., 2016. "Optimal policies in cities with congestion and agglomeration externalities: Congestion tolls, labor subsidies, and place-based strategies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 64-86.
    4. Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau, Eva & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2010. "Labour supply and commuting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 82-89, July.
    5. Eva Gutierrez-i-Puigarnau & Jos van Ommeren, 2009. "Labour Supply and Commuting: Implications for Optimal Road Taxes," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-008/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Brian Asquith, 2019. "Do Rent Increases Reduce the Housing Supply Under Rent Control? Evidence from Evictions in San Francisco," Upjohn Working Papers 19-296, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    7. repec:dgr:uvatin:20090008 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Lindsey, Robin, 2012. "Road pricing and investment," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 49-63.
    9. Erik T. Verhoef & Jan Rouwendal, 2004. "Pricing, Capacity Choice, and Financing in Transportation Networks," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 405-435, August.
    10. Button, Kenneth, 2004. "1. The Rationale For Road Pricing: Standard Theory And Latest Advances," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-25, January.
    11. Morten Skak & Gintautas Bloze, 2013. "Rent Control and Misallocation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(10), pages 1988-2005, August.
    12. Takayama, Yuki, 2015. "Bottleneck congestion and distribution of work start times: The economics of staggered work hours revisited," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P3), pages 830-847.
    13. Rhee, Hyok-Joo & Yu, Sanggyun & Hirte, Georg, 2014. "Zoning in cities with traffic congestion and agglomeration economies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 82-93.
    14. Blair Jenkins, 2009. "Rent Control: Do Economists Agree?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6(1), pages 73-112, January.
    15. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    16. Ian W.H. Parry, 2009. "Pricing Urban Congestion," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 461-484, September.
    17. Kholodilin, Konstantin A., 2024. "Rent control effects through the lens of empirical research: An almost complete review of the literature," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    18. William C. Strange, 2009. "Viewpoint: Agglomeration research in the age of disaggregation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 1-27, February.
    19. Shihe Fu & V Brian Viard, 2019. "Commute costs and labor supply: evidence from a satellite campus," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 723-752.
    20. Safirova, Elena & Gillingham, Kenneth & Parry, Ian & Nelson, Peter & Harrington, Winston & Mason, David, 2004. "8. Welfare And Distributional Effects Of Road Pricing Schemes For Metropolitan Washington Dc," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 179-206, January.
    21. Mogens Fosgerau & Kenneth Small, 2017. "Endogenous Scheduling Preferences And Congestion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 585-615, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:661. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.