It's on you to show an example of a city where these various regulations are absent and where rent control hurt housing supply. Good luck.
I'm being serious here, if you think that a vague, purely theoretical argument, from theories that we already know are very far from complete, is a match for empirical evidence, then you are not treating economics as a science.
There's nothing vague about the argument against rent control. Further, I don't agree with your view of science. Empirical evidence matters but the pure empiricism that you're advocating is not convincing to me.
I think we would be better off reforming regulations that are preventing people from building than enacting rent control. That seems like a very reasonable opinion with plenty of support from economists. I find your posts in this thread overly dismissive and aggressive.
No, the argument is indeed vague. There are plenty of situations where intervening in the market actually increases efficiency - for example, patents, state monopolies on utilities, minimum wages, etc...
Simply pointing to "supply and demand" and operating by maximalist principle is a vague argument. You have to actually engage with the fact that housing can never be an ideal markets and that inelasticities are indeed great.
Again, if you think that these regulations are both more effective and exclusive to rent control, you can find empirical evidence.
I'm not being a pure empiricist. A basic theory made an empirical prediction - that rent control would decrease supply - and the theory is wrong. You can't then use the same theory that made an already incorrect prediction to make a second prediction that is this time almost impossible to evaluate empirically. Find another theory and make an original prediction, without ex-post-facto retconning, and we can judge that theory on the merits.
As it is, we already know that simple neoclassical market theory does not apply to markets with significant price in-elasticity and friction, and the housing market is and will always be like that.
It's theory that is often wrong, that is wrong here again, you can't rely on it over the empirical evidence by retconning your predictions after the fact. That's just bad science. In another field that would get you laughed out of the room.
> Simply pointing to "supply and demand" and operating by maximalist principle is a vague argument. You have to actually engage with the fact that housing can never be an ideal markets and that inelasticities are indeed great.
I never made a maximalist argument of any kind. I never said there can be an ideal market. I merely think that we should move towards an ideal market (which we will never reach) rather than on rent control (which is at best a band-aid).
> I'm not being a pure empiricist. A basic theory made an empirical prediction - that rent control would decrease supply - and the theory is wrong. You can't then use the same theory that made an already incorrect prediction to make a second prediction that is this time almost impossible to evaluate empirically. Find another theory and make an original prediction, without ex-post-facto retconning, and we can judge that theory on the merits.
The idea that some studies have falsified supply and demand is bizarre. You're assuming "inelasticities" and regulations are fixed for some reason.
Ease zoning restrictons and watch supply increase. Then enact rent control and watch supply decrease.
Actually, the paper doesn't make any claims on the supply of housing, it makes claims on the rental supply. There is an important distinction.
That rent control makes renting less profitable and that landlords sell some properties is absolutely expected. The question is whether that actually increases rents, which the article does not establish, it instead makes the leap that less rental units means higher rents even if the total supply of housing stays the same, while assuming that rent control doesn't actually lower prices.
All in all, the article doesn't actually make the claim or even suggestion that rent control decreased the supply of housing. The article doesn't provide evidence that rents would have increased faster without rent control, as it doesn't quantify the rent depressing effect of rent control at all.
By the way, I don't actually like the SF implementation of rent control and I believe that the actual implementation details of rent control are critical. I wouldn't be surprised if SF's rent control wasn't effective at all. It's just that the article you linked doesn't actually makes such a claim.
> All in all, the article doesn't actually make the claim or even suggestion that rent control decreased the supply of housing
But right there if you even read to the end of the abstract:
"Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law."
Probably now you're going split hairs on rental supply vs. supply. Ok.
But at least we can firmly state that the original claim "we now know rent control isn't bad" was bunk.
No, it's not a claim that market rents increased in the long run, it's a suggestion. I can assure you I've read the entire article, and if you re-read my reply you're going to notice that I specifically talked about claims vs suggestions.
If the article had made an actual claim that market rents increased in the long run, it wouldn't have passed peer review.
That's because there is no empirical evidence that market rents increased in the long run, and no actual analysis, that would have to take into account factors like displacement of ethnic minorities and it's impact on rents, the change in homeownership rates, the tendency for rents to compound over time thus giving an outsized effect to the initial suppression of rents, etc..., which wouldn't come to a solid conclusion without additional data.
As a result, we cannot say that it's incorrect that rent control isn't bad. The evidence you've provided falls way short of the argument.
I'm being serious here, if you think that a vague, purely theoretical argument, from theories that we already know are very far from complete, is a match for empirical evidence, then you are not treating economics as a science.