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Tenancy Rent Control and Credible Commitment in Maintenance

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  • Richard J. Arnott
  • 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 and maintenance. 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.

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  • Richard J. Arnott & Elizaveta Shevyakhova, 2014. "Tenancy Rent Control and Credible Commitment in Maintenance," CESifo Working Paper Series 4608, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4608
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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).
    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. 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).
    8. Zhao, Weihua, 2022. "The long-run effects of minimum lot size zoning on housing redevelopment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    9. Miguel-Ángel López García, 2023. "Controles de alquileres," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 246(3), pages 165-206, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    tenancy rent control; rent control; maintenance; housing quality; credible commitment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

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