Blog: Respected Economist Takes Down Rent Control

In case you missed it, one such economist, Jay Parsons, took down rent control once and for all in a Twitter thread. He highlighted the catastrophic history of rent control, the harmful impact it has on communities and the unified perspectives on rent control from economists of all backgrounds.

As Parsons reminds readers in his thread, rent control is rare historically because we have clear examples that we can look to demonstrating that the flawed policy doesn’t work as intended. It is a short-term fix for current residents (and not necessarily those in most need), at the expense of long-term affordability for a much broader population. As a Stanford economist notes, “Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification and creates negative externalities.”