Talk:Rent regulation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Probably need to start an RfC

This has been argued back and forth for several years without a solid resolution. At various times editors have felt that because one or another economics group or think tank or journal conducted some kind of survey of economists and produced a result of some kind, that we should write in Wikipedia's voice that it is a fact that rent regulation is bad. And that economists "all" think so. It isn't controversial to hew closely to sources: Organization X said that 87% of economists in a survey it conducted said they oppose rent regulation. That doesn't belong in the lead because no gropu of economists is the ultimate authority. Each club or clique or school has its own followers. To me this is an example of wanting Wikipedia to settle debates, or judge bar bets. I have a proposal hanging around User:Dennis Bratland/sandbox#Draft WP:NOT proposal that I want to push through at some point. It goes beyond Verifiability to settle or pick winners in controversies that are objectively not settled.

The question should be asked in an RfC: Should this article say that rent control has been judged and found wanting? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:06, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello! I agree with all of your comments above and with your ideas/comments in your proposal. You are correct, our job is to report on the state of research/knowledge, not to be the researchers deciding it. I agree with that.

What I was trying to do in the lead was to accurately condense the multiple studies I have found (plus what additional I had read) into one concise sentence to summarize the results of these multiple studies, which otherwise take up an entire section if they are worded in the way you talked about non-controvertially wording it. (Like the studies I added in the Rent_regulation#Economists'_views section.

Maybe a better wording, which I have heard used was "decades of near-concensus". A fair question is when does wikipedia claim that consensus exists? I haven't found any definition anywhere (not just on wikipedia) which states any percentage definition of the word "consensus". If 99% of surveyed people all had one view, but 1% had the opposite, would that be a consensus? What is the % difference between consensus, solid consensus, and overwhelming consensus?

Here's another good source which talks about an overview of economists' views, which I should have included.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/rent-control-good-policy (from Wikipedia: "The Urban Institute has been referred to as "independent"[4][5] and as "liberal".[6]")

"The voices of Urban Institute's researchers and staff"

Given the challenges in today’s rental market, does rent control deserve a second look? A scan of the research literature revealed very little evidence that rent control is a good policy. ... There is near universal agreement that strict price ceilings, such as the kind imposed in New York City in the 1940s, are always bad because they severely inhibit housing production and investment. Even those most sympathetic to rent control seem to agree with this. ... Given the current research, there seems to be little one can say in favor of rent control.

Also, here's just a couple of more quotes from MSM (specifically chosen liberal leaning media) which could be included: NOTE: both of these articles are reporting, NOT opinion pieces.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/technology/in-silicon-valley-suburbs-calls-to-limit-the-soaring-rents.html

Economists have an almost universally dim view of rent control...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Rent-control-spreading-to-Bay-Area-suburbs-to-9215216.php

The concept of rent control, once found mostly in large cities, is spreading to the Bay Area’s suburbs, even though virtually every economist thinks it’s a bad idea.

Rather than simply state economists dislike rent control as a "bad" idea, I preferred the more specifically descriptive phrase: "does more harm than good", which also came from the sources. ---- Avatar317 (talk) 06:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

ADDITIONAL LATER COMMENT: So how about this wording: "Multiple studies, literature surveys, and opinion polls of economists over decades have consistently shown that an overwhelming majority of economists feel that rent control (does more harm than good) or (causes more problems than it solves)." ... and I'll remove the non-neutral language from the following sentence "Despite the aforementioned...".

I agree with your comments about not oversimplifying complicated subjects and not making up truths/decisions for the reader, yet at the same time, there is a balance between telling the whole complicated issue and simplifying somewhat for the beginner. Anytime you teach a subject, you invariably start with oversimplifications, and then progress into the more complicated details. ---- Avatar317 (talk) 21:40, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

All of the edits I have seen from Avatar317 have a particular bias toward libertarian or free market sources. Avatar317 is ignoring all the sources that show rent control to be popular. Avatar317 is also choosing to ignore the negative social aspects on a neighborhood of constantly changing residents. If you only look at one metric, you miss the larger context. Urban planners largely agree that rent control has a positive effect on a city, whereas economists agree that rent control is bad, because economists are not looking at the quality-of-life issues. Binksternet (talk) 07:18, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Binksternet: Firstly, the quote I added in my last edit (before you reverted my edits) was to more completely explain to the reader the views of economists:

"Economists, sure enough, hate rent control, licensing requirements and the gold standard, love free trade (including with China), high-skilled immigration, congestion pricing and carbon taxes, and think the Laffer curve is a bunch of baloney. Other answers are more surprising. The panelists lean toward supporting tougher capital requirements on big banks and backing the 2009 stimulus package, and, by a wide margin, back increasing the minimum wage to $9 an hour and indexing it to inflation. The results don't always map easily onto U.S. political divides." I'd like to note that libertarians and free-marketeers generally don't support minimum wages or the 2009 stimulus package, so economists suggest policy based on its effects on the economy, not along political or ideological lines.

Second, I'd have no problem having a sentence in the lead stating how popular with the public rent control is, if there are sources from surveys. For your own elightenment, it doesn't matter what views are popular, that doesn't make them correct or good. Racism was (and probably still is to some extent) popular in this country; it doesn't mean that it is good, or good social policy. (Of course, racism can be said to be a "social good" for the dominant class, it just depends on how broadly you define "social good.")

So you are making a CLAIM that a neighborhood with constantly changing residents is somehow bad? Can you back up your belief with any sources to explain HOW or WHY it is bad, other than that you (and maybe others) don't like it? Just because YOU (or others) don't like something, doesn't mean that it is bad.

Lastly, I've done lots of reading lately on housing issues, and have never come across anywhere in an article where an urban planner (or some association of them) has said anything like you claim (that they support rent control). That doesn't mean that such info doesn't exist, but if you can find it in reliable sources I wouldn't be opposed to including it in a sentence along with the views of the public and views of economists. (If we add a sentence about the views of urban planners, I'd like there to be also a section added "Urban Planners' views" which would give greater detail about WHY they support rent control.) ----Avatar317 (talk) 22:35, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Shulman quote and Mercury News

I've removed the Mercury News source [1] from the Theory section because it doesn't support any of the statements made in that section. The paragraph discusses the general opinion of the economics profession towards rent control and uses several large studies as sources. The Mercury News source is not only unnecessary, but also insufficient for such claims, and the quote from a single economist is meaningless in the context of the text it was being used to support. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 12:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The source would be useful for its assertion that rent control does not put a damper on new construction. The source says that new housing in Santa Monica was greater during the rent control decades 1980 to 1999 than during the pre-regulation period 1960 to 1979. This observation should be incorporated into the article, citing the source. Binksternet (talk) 05:22, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a single newspaper source put up alongside major reviews in economics journals. It would be irresponsible to contradict high quality, specialist sources with claims made in popular news stories. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 05:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

What is the contradiction? If there's no direct contradiction of the stated fact I would view the Mercury News piece as an expansion of the topic. And if Santa Monica's experience is somehow different than other cities, then that fact will be of interest. The Mercury News source should not be dismissed unless its assertion specifically disproved by a higher quality source. Binksternet (talk) 05:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Also, you're misstating the claim in the source. In Santa Monica, the largest share of renter-occupied housing was built in the roughly 20-year span from 1960 to 1979 — before the city had rent control. Building activity has tapered off in the decades since. Yet from 1980 to 1999, when the city had a strong rent control law in place, more apartment building construction occurred than in the most recent 20-year period, when Costa-Hawkins banned strong local rent control laws. The line "most recent 20-year period" refers to the 20-year period ending today. The previous line makes clear that more housing was built over 1960-1979 than in any other period. But that's beside the point. This is a single data point about a single city (two cities I guess since the article discusses Berkeley as well, though the data there contradicts the claim they're trying to make), and that really shouldn't put up against actual academic papers on the topic. It'd be like using a single news article to include text about how a single person experienced great results from a diet alongside the consensus of nutritionists saying that diet fails to achieve its stated goals and actually causes weight gain. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 05:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I see your point about a single economist's prediction vs. the predominant "wisdom in the field." I'm ok with not having it in this article. Thank you for your comments here. ---Avatar317 (talk) 23:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Synthesis: two economists

This edit is a violation of WP:SYNTH because it makes a comparison where there was none before. No source discusses how Paul Krugman and Thomas Sowell both hold negative opinions about rent control. Instead, disparate sources have been brought together to produce a novel conclusion.

Furthermore, sources have been rallied that have nothing at all to do with rent regulation. A Youtube source is cited to establish Krugman as liberal, but nothing in the source pertains to rent regulation.

Then a throwaway answer to an interview question is used to establish Sowell as saying that rent control is "poor economics, which, despite its good intentions, leads to the creation of less housing and housing shortages." Sowell said nothing of the sort: he said he was not a fan of rent control, then he shifted the focus to the homeless problem and the high number of "boarded-up housing units" which could conceivably house the homeless. He did not talk about low income wage earners trying to stay in their homes despite paying a too-high percentage of their wages to the landlords, or any other relevant isssues of rent control. Nothing Sowell says here can be construed as "poor economics, which, despite its good intentions, leads to the creation of less housing and housing shortages." Instead, he's saying there are enough residences to take care of the homeless.

The whole thing is manufactured to push an agenda. Binksternet (talk) 06:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, this is totally WP:SYNTH. I also doubt that citing individual economists' opinions (particularly economists selected for their political leanings) contributes much to the article quality when we already cite surveys. This reads as, "Liberals and conservatives alike are critical of rent control!" which is obviously slanted. Better to discuss specific aspects of rent control's economic effects (see my #Proposal below). Update: I've fixed it. Qzekrom (talk) 04:27, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with your separating Krugman and Sowell's statements.

But I wanted to note that I specifically included political leanings of the Urban Institute and Krugman as an individual (because he's well known and liberal) because other editors, (specifically Binksternet and Dennis Bratland) claimed again and again (read other parts of this talk page, or archives) that any economist who is against rent control must be conservative/libertarian; so I specifically included the referenced political leaning of the Urban Institute to prove to them (and more importantly any readers who might hold the same beliefs) that that is NOT the case.

The bold part of this quote sums up the point I was trying to make: "Economists, sure enough, hate rent control, licensing requirements and the gold standard, love free trade (including with China), high-skilled immigration, congestion pricing and carbon taxes, and think the Laffer curve is a bunch of baloney. Other answers are more surprising. The panelists lean toward supporting tougher capital requirements on big banks and backing the 2009 stimulus package, and, by a wide margin, back increasing the minimum wage to $9 an hour and indexing it to inflation. The results don't always map easily onto U.S. political divides." ---Avatar317^(talk) 06:36, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Example from Global warming controversy

This might be a good example about how we could word stuff in this article. I'd like to note here that the lead does not mention what the public opinion on global warming is, but does cite the scientists' opinions. (I've only cut a part of the lead here.)

In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.[2][3][4][5][6][7] No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[8] though a few organizations with members in extractive industries hold non-committal positions.[9] Disputes over the key scientific facts of global warming are more prevalent in the media than in the scientific literature, where such issues are treated as resolved, and such disputes are more prevalent in the United States than globally.[10][11]

This would also probably a good line to have in the lead, just replace "Global warming" with "Rent control"

...Global warming remains an issue of widespread political debate, often split along party political lines, especially in the United States.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Avatar317 (talk • contribs)

There is a hu-u-uge difference between public opinion about science, and public opinion about human society issues. Of course we emphasize the science at the article about global warming. But there's no good reason to emphasize economists at the rent regulation article, since the topic is squishy and human. Rather than trying to crush their voices here, you should be trying to tell the reader why the people who vote for rent control keep doing so.

The main problem I have with your economists slant is that economists aren't valuing the stability of the community. Dr. Stephen Barton, former commissioner of the City of Berkeley, points this out as economists calling neighborhood stability "reduced mobility" to give it a negative cast.[2] Binksternet (talk) 23:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, economics is a social science. Even if we were talking about a physical science, compare how we treat scientific certainty in the Featured Article definition of planet. That article is encyclopedic: it names what the various schools of thought over time have been and are, and it names which ones have announced definitive answers, and which have taken issue with that. Nothing we say about a specific economic issue should take a more strident tone in Wikipedia's voice than definition of a planet.

More importantly, this isn't just a social science issue. This is a highly political social science issue. The position anyone takes about price ceilings and floors in general is inseparable from one's politics. Should articles like Socialism or Marxian economics boldly announce int he lead that "economists nearly all agree that free markets are best"? As with the issue of neighborhood stability, the answers depend entirely on our philosophical definition of 'the good'. The majority of economist opinions I've seen criticizing rent regulation work on the assumption that increasing the supply of housing is an unmitigated good, and decreasing the supply is bad. Few if any consider the qualities of that supply: if the supply of low-cost housing increases within an overall decrease in the supply of housing, many rent regulation supporters would call that good. Economists generally have a set of tacit assumptions that don't allow for that kind of nuance.

We should also consider that it is recognized among climate scientists that there is a great social need for all of them to meet and find a consensus on basic questions about the climate, such as human-caused global warming. They have made a concerted effort to hammer this out among themselves. Among economists, it is not a recognized goal for them to publish a consensus view on rent regulation. Instead, a few journals and think tanks have attempted to conduct surveys, which is a whole different thing.

In one case, climate scientists want the public to know they have a strong consensus. In the other case, economists are scattered and going about their business, and someone calls them up and asks them to weigh in, asking, rent control, up or down? An economist who doesn't even work in a related field is just as likely to through their two cents in as one who has actually studied urban issues and rent, whereas a climate scientist whose work is outside the scope of man made climate change is going to step back and let those who know best speak for them.

It isn't asking much to refrain from saying these bold claims in Wikipedia's voice. Attribute them directly to the groups making the claims, and don't tout them in the lead as if they were the final word. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

@Dennis: You make some very good points, like about the "definition of a planet", and Socialism, Marxism. Thank you for those points. I still need to think about it a little more. But thank you! I'm leaning toward agreeing with you that the lead should maybe only give a clean definition of rent control, withOUT pros/cons, maybe a sentence about its history (a lot after WWII, and on the wane since, with no reason implied by that).

One comment I'd like to make to both of you as pertains to "quality of life" issues, and "social good". It is NOT that economists intentionally ignore, or create some assumptions which allow them to ignore these things, rather it is IMPOSSIBLE for economists to incorporate these factors in their calculations. These things have different meanings to different people, and cannot be quantified. Some people may like a large, bustling city like NYC, others may hate it. Some may like neighborhoods with diverse ethincities, others may not. Slave-owners would highly value slavery, while slaves would hate it. All economists can do is estimate how much higher or lower overall economic output would be in a system with slavery or a system without.

A following comment on the above is that of course a city officer would like rent control, it benefits his/her electorate. (Anything that makes their electorate more happy they will support, which includes housing shortages which make homeowners' happy by driving up their home values, (property tax issues also come in to play here) but renters unhappy, so it depends on the percentages of those groups and their vocality at city meetings.) The mayor of Berkeley doesn't care about the people who live in the rust belt who are worse off because they can't afford the cost of housing in one of the many major metropolitan areas that have experienced most of the economic growth after the Great Recession, (so they are stuck with either worse employment opportunities, or unemployment), but economists look at the economy-wide picture when they do their studies to analyze the complete effects of rent control, not just its effects on the sooners (the residents who got to some city before the others).

Something which may help you understand why economists' so heavily favor lots of housing in cities is this fact, which (I believe) few people in the public understand, the corollary to: In capitalism, the only thing that reduces prices is competition. The only thing that increases wages (for a given job type) is competition (companies competing for workers). If workers have few choices for jobs (rural areas) then companies don't need to pay that well, because changing jobs involves relocating, which is much harder than simply changing one's commute. Cities, therefore, help individual workers maximize their earning power, and the bigger the city the better, because of more competition. -Avatar317 (talk) 01:11, 22 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

First, can you stop inserting a solid line by typing four dashes in a row? You can type three or fewer dashes in a row to make your signature stand out, but not four.

Second, nobody here needs a lecture on capitalism and competition. What is needed are reliable sources discussing the exact topic. Binksternet (talk) 03:12, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I want to point out a few things in response to everything said in this thread so far:

• There's a huge difference between discussing the effects of rent control (e.g. "Rent control decreases the quantity and quality of housing") and making a value judgment about those effects (e.g. "Rent control doesn't benefit renters"). Rent control can still be good for renters overall because it strengthens neighborhood communities; one would have to prove that the growth of social capital caused by rent control together with the other benefits is enough to outweigh the drawbacks (and even then, I'm assuming the reader is a consequentialist). Our job as Wikipedians is to present economic consensus where it exists (e.g. "quantity and quality") and leave it to the reader to pass judgment (i.e. "rent control is good/bad"). Similarly, the lead section of Global warming controversy goes on to say that "There are debates about the best policy responses to the science, their cost-effectiveness and their urgency" (a value judgment).
• From WP:MNA (a subsection of WP:NPOV): "When writing articles, there may be cases where making some assumptions is necessary to get through a topic. For example, in writing about evolution, it is not helpful to hash out the creation-evolution controversy on every page." Likewise, the lead section on Marxian economics states: "Although the Marxian school is considered heterodox, ideas that have come out of Marxian economics have contributed to mainstream understanding of the global economy." It's up to the reader then to look up what theory "heterodox" is defined in relation to. We don't even need to take a side between economic schools of thought as long we only present as fact what is confirmed by the empirical evidence. This means assuming that economics follows the scientific method (and vetting our sources for papers that do).

Qzekrom (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Actually, here's an example of an article that presents a consensus. From the lead section of Free trade: "There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth. However, liberalization of trade can cause significant and unequally distributed losses, and the economic dislocation of workers in import-competing sectors." It's not saying that free trade is bad (although "positive" and "negative" are words with POV connotations that could be replaced with more neutral words like "facilitate" and "impede"), but it is describing the current state of knowledge on free trade. The reader may well conclude that free trade is still bad given its severe negative impacts on certain groups of workers. "Free trade facilitates economic growth" is positive economics, whereas "Free trade facilitates growth, growth is good, therefore free trade is good" is normative economics. Qzekrom (talk) 02:23, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Archiving

Can we set up auto-archiving? If we're going to keep having the same NPOV argument, we should not keep reviving old discussion threads. Qzekrom (talk) 17:40, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Requiring an economics background?

The long and short is that rent controls are counter-productive. There is no "other side" to account for-- we have only to look at the instances in which it was implemented and judge therefrom. Economics is also not "some social science" (did someone seriously write that we need to account for "squishyness" when writing about economics"?); rather, it is highly technical and mathematical field of study. If you choose this approach to economic issues, you might as well give equal weight to the Biblical counterclaims on the page about evolution or talk about the fact that it is still snowing as a counterargument to climate change. As someone studying economics at the graduate level, that is exactly what I gather when I read this page.

To reiterate: rent controls are as effective as using crystals to cure cancer. Desist from adding your two-cents about "human squishyness" on articles about economics (I have every intention of keeping my lunch down when I visit Wikipedia).— Preceding unsigned comment added by JKRichard (talk • contribs) 11:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry we use RS, so my personal knowledge is irrelevant as long as I only repeat what RS say.Slatersteven (talk) 12:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Slatersteven is right, editors are not required to be experts to edit an article. We rely on reliable sources, not personal knowledge. My impression of the sources I've read is that economists are pretty well united in the opinion that rent control measures reduce the quality and quantity of available rental housing. Of course, there are other aspects to rent control (it might have positive effects on housing stability or affordability for the people who do live in rent control housing, even if it's an overall negative to society), and other opinions on rent control (in places where rent control exists, it tends to be pretty popular among the public). These should be mentioned, but I think that most of the article should present the POV of economists, since that's the relevant expertise when it comes to issues of market regulation and price controls. Just like the article on GMO food presents the opinions of the public but also mainly consists of the dominant scientific consensus that GMOs are safe. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Also (and to be clear) I disagree with them, but wp:fringe means that the views of experts takes precedence over non experts. We reflect what the professional consensus is.Slatersteven (talk) 10:08, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

As others have said, a background in economics is not required to summarize sources.

Rent regulation has an economic aspect and a social aspect. There are many sources discussing the economic aspect, but the social side is significant, as it serves to explain the popularity of rent control among certain voter populations. A complete and full treatment of the topic must cite social sources to tell the reader what is the attraction of rent control despite the economic arguments against it. Binksternet (talk) 15:23, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

All of these comments are highly political. The discussions above, and those in the archive, have gone into detail about why that is so, why various economist groups and publications are not as objective or comprehensive as they claim, and why they don't measure economic goods by the same standards. What is considered "good" for the economy is ultimately a political choice, not determined by any so-called science of economics. Yet many schools of economics deny that this is possible. Just like a lot of religions don't considered their own beliefs to be religious opinions; only all the other religions. Their religion is fact.

As far as Wikipedia is concered, it's abundantly clear that the sources are miles away from the level of strong consensus described under WP:WIKIVOICE that would allow us to treat any statements about rent control as "facts". It's all opinions. All should be attributed WP:INTEXT with the sources of the opinions named in the text, not just the footnotes.

It might also be a good idea to review Wikipedia:Ownership of content. It is a policy violation to ever say "don't edit this page" if you aren't X or haven't studied Y. This type of behavior can get one blocked from editing. See WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Dennis: Can you cite any references for why you believe (what I consider) your dogma that: "What is considered "good" for the economy is ultimately a political choice, not determined by any so-called science of economics.

I have not seen economists making statements like: "We should have a tax on CO2 emissions." rather I have seen statements like: "*IF* society wants to reduce CO2 emissions, then the best policy to effect this is a CO2 tax/fee."

To my knowledge, there is NO political choice in economics? Can you prove me wrong? ---Avatar317 (talk) 00:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Prove you wrong? Why should I have to? Read WP:BURDEN. You're the one who has content you want to add to the article. The burden is on you to provide citations that support it, and meet challenges based on WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:Verifiability etc.

Economics is not a science. There is no (real) Nobel Prize in economics. The kind of surveys you cite attempting to gauge what "economists" think are dubious in their methodology. They handpick who gets asked to respond. Without a random sample of a population, a survey is meaningless. One of the things they do is arbitrarily decide who qualifies as an economist. To take an extreme (and local) example, Kshama Sawant does not (conveniently) qualify as an economist. These surveys would never ask what she thinks.

More generally, economics is not a profession like law or medicine or engineering. No objective boards decide who qualifies to call themselves a member of the profession, and there are no legal consequences for failing to meet professional standards, as there would be, for example, for an engineer whose bridge failed and hurt people. Economists are free to be as wrong as they please, and as long as they continue to subscribe to a politically strong faction (e.g. The Chicago School), they will never be drummed out of the "profession".

The problems of what is "good" for the economy are summed up in the Keynes quote "In the long run we are all dead". You might argue that in the long run the market will punish bad actors and balance the scales. But not everyone has the luxury to wait that long. One of the reasons so many citizens reject the "wisdom" of economists is that they have real problems in front of them today, not in 50 years when the market shakes it all out. Or consider Homo economicus, a deep critique of the kind of economic thinking on display here. Voters who support rent control aren't stupid. They're people who don't want to be put out on the street today, because they'll freeze to death tomorrow. Maybe in 15 years the overall supply of housing will be smaller, but who would let themselves freeze for the sake of that? Show more interest and respect for why some people support one kind or another of rent control. They're not as dumb as certain schools of economics think, and a good Wikipedia article would present the best cases of all POVs.

Look, you weaken our own case by erasing other points of view. Everyone knows some Wikipedia articles are good, and a great many of them are garbage. Anybody who starts reading an article and realizes that every single statement is written from only one point of view will realize they have found one of the garbage articles. They won't take it seriously. If you want your beliefs to be taken seriously here in this article, treat all points of view with due weight, and readers will respect it, and will perhaps be convinced by the merits of your case. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:01, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Very well put. Binksternet (talk) 05:22, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

It's a bit misleading to call Kshama Sawant an economist on the same level as those surveyed, when from a quick look at that article, she hasn't published any peer reviewed research. Benjamin (talk) 02:48, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi all. I did not close this thread because I think that the respondents have addressed the problematic aspects of JKRichard's original post, and I think this thread is worth keeping open if we stick to discussing the reliability and weight of potential sources on rent control. However, I removed the title because I think it is obnoxious and might deter other potential editors from participating in the valuable discussions going on across this talk page. Qzekrom (talk) 03:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Reliable sources and weight explains how to weigh minority views against academic consensus. Qzekrom (talk) 03:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

In this case any claim that there even is an "academic consensus" is dubious. It's laughable that those who favor some form of rent control are some kind of "minority" or aberrant dissenters. Rent control is a an everyday practice in Paris and most of France, Moscow, Mexico City, New York City. Pretty much all of India, a country of 1.2 billion people. It's difficult to calculate, but at least 1/3 of the human race lives where rent control is the norm. Possibly much more than 1/2, depending on your opinions about de facto rent control in China. When I added data on the prevalence of rent control around the world, it was quickly deleted. Why is that? How could we not be interested in knowing this information? I believe it's an embarrassment to those who entertain this fantasy that the question of rent control is settled.

A narrow cross section of Western, academic, libertarian-leaning economists form a cabal that claims to speak for all economists, and further claim to have found scientific truth. Not even close. It is totally fine to describe these opinions, to identify who this group of economists is, and to describe why they reach the conclusions they have. But treating this quite vast sector of governments, citizens, and researchers who like their rent control policies the way they are as a "minority" is absurd. These economists need to wake up from their fairyland and take notice of reality. They have a long way to go if they want to claim they've settled anything. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:42, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

This is an argumentum ad populum. We can talk about the popularity of rent control in § Politics and its prevalence in § Rent regulation by country, but we cannot give undue weight to non-academic opinions when academics (including these economists) have studied it scientifically. I don't even care about supply and demand for the purposes of this article; I only maintain that the scientific method is the best way to study the effects of social policies. And the preponderance of empirical evidence points to rent control having hidden costs (though not necessarily being "bad"). Also, a random sample of PhD-holding AEA members across the political spectrum is hardly a libertarian cabal (though I now doubt that all of the respondents to some straw poll are equally qualified to speak on specific policy issues).

There are other ways to address housing affordability that are targeted and more effective; for example, housing subsidies and public housing reduce the amount renters pay without causing a commensurate increase in search costs or decrease in maintenance. There's no need for policymakers to get attached to rent control as the only way to solve a housing crisis as long as the goal is achieved. Also, only 140 cities still practice rent control; most other cities that enacted rent control during WWII removed it afterward. Out of 19,000 incorporated places in the US, they are the minority. Qzekrom (talk) 17:18, 25 February 2019 (UTC) (edited 03:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC))

Third opinion

Note: I have asked for a third opinion (more like seventh opinion, am I right?) on "whether the article should state that economists agree on the effects of rent control" at Wikipedia:Third opinion. Qzekrom (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think WP:3O is appropriate – that's where you go when there's only two people who have been going back and forth about an issue. In this case, a WP:Request for comment would be appropriate. Binksternet (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Actually you're right. Qzekrom (talk) 23:02, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Binksternet: Do you think the RfC statement I just added fully captures what the disagreement is about? Qzekrom (talk) 23:16, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Well, he asked, and I'm here... I have an economics background, although I think everyone agrees this is about Wikipedia policy, not economics per se. My opinion is that the question, framed as yes/no, is not very helpful. Should the article state that economists agree on the effects of rent control, yes or no? If you ask me that way, I would say, "no" it shouldn't. That kind of framing is political in that it appears to be a simple argument from authority on a politically sensitive topic. It's one thing to rely on sources, and it's another to position a political argument by arguing that authorities all agree with that opinion. With politically sensitive topics, there is an inherent concern about appearance of bias (not just a concern about actual bias). In other words, even if most economists would agree with a point of view, saying "economists agree" is going to sound like a political argument to readers who have a political aversion to that argument. It's kind of like saying "fact checkers agree that on the whole Trump lies more than any other president". It's not constructive to debate whether that is actually true or not. The point is that it is such a politically charged topic that you can't avoid the appearance of being political by putting it that way. In short, there are ways to address the question of what the extensive body of economic thought has to contribute to the subject of rent control without having to include a sentence like "econonomists agree that rent control is bad". Find a better way to do it. Coastside (talk) 01:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Coastside! I think you make an important point about avoiding the appearance of bias and arguments from authority in a supposedly neutral article. The findings of social scientists should speak for themselves and not depend on authority figures like the AEA to push them. Nullius in verba. Also, consensus can change over time. A few decades ago, there was a consensus among Western economists that wage floors had a negative relationship to employment levels. IIRC, more economists today question that belief.

Admittedly my position on this issue changed several times during my involvement with this page; I got overexcited after I noticed that Free trade claims that "there is a broad consensus among economists," but I also suspected foul play because I saw comments raising issues of political bias and no evidence that the issues had been properly addressed (even in the talk page archives). I wrongly assumed that the Free trade "case" established precedent that we at Rent regulation could base our editorial decisions on.

I think this is a conversation that the Wikipedia economics community (including but not limited to WikiProject Economics, which I just joined) will need to have on neutrality in economic policy articles. WikiProject Econ lacks a policy task force, which I think will be essential for dealing with POV issues on policy articles in a consistent manner. While casually browsing WP econ articles I've noticed other instances of bias, such as at Consumption tax. The closest thing we have to a POV guideline is this page on reliable sources and weight, but I didn't find it very helpful for identifying majority and minority viewpoints, providing examples of situations, etc.

Qzekrom (talk) 03:49, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

By the way, I opened the RfC because I saw you remove the 3O request but didn't see a response at that time. Sorry if I misunderstood your cues. Qzekrom (talk) 04:48, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Coastside: Thank you for your comments!! You said: In short, there are ways to address the question of what the extensive body of economic thought has to contribute to the subject of rent control without having to include a sentence like "econonomists agree that rent control is bad". Find a better way to do it. -- What do you think about the wording/neutrality of the statements in the Rent_regulation#Economists'_views section? ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:12, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

In general I think the wording of this section is fairly neutral and seems to do an ok job representing the general views of mainstream economists. I might make a few edits to improve wording here and there, but the only part I think worth specifically mentioning from a neutrality point of view is the paragraph on the 2012 poll, which injects commentary with the phrase "only one member agreed". That wording is arguably slanted, especially as there were apparently some undecideds in the mix as well (so the one was not necessarily some crackpot). A more neutrally worded paragraph would be something like:

In a 2012 poll of the 41 members of the Initiative on Global Markets (IGM) Economic Experts Panel, which queried opinions on the statement "Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them,"  13 members said they strongly disagreed, 20 disagreed, 1 agreed, and 7 either did not answer, were undecided, or had no opinion.

My impression on reading this section is that the editors for the most part are making a concerted effort to remain neutral. Having said that, I can't help thinking there is an appearance of some unintended bias. Here is a well-written and balanced article by the Brookings Institution which I think does a very good job in presenting a neutral and balanced point of view: What does economic evidence tell us about the effects of rent control?. Note how this article uses language like a "substantial body of economic research" instead of "economists agree". Also, note how this article goes out of its way to introduce contrary and balancing points, such as the fact that there are short-term "insurance" benefits to renters. The Brookings article uses the term "insurance" ten times. The Wikipedia article only mentions benefits to existing renters in the section on California studies, and these mentions are quickly followed by a sentence that begins "However, ..." The language of the Wikipedia article appears strident in an attempt to use neutral language, but I can't help see an apparent and demonstrable, albeit slight, bias nonetheless. Coastside (talk) 06:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

To provide a more complete answer regarding the entire article, I would say there is a rather clear slant to the article on the whole. My comment above was a response to your question about the section about "economists views". On the whole the article treats the topic as if it were an issue about which the primary authorities are economists. In my view it doesn't present a balanced view on the topic. As the article points out, many countries have rent control laws. The article doesn't do a good job explaining the rationale for these laws. It also doesn't do a good job explaining the political debate about rent control policies. It simply describes the various types of policies (redundantly) and then uses economics as a hammer to make the case that these policies are flawed. The fact that the lead ends in a paragraph touting the "rare consensus" among economists that rent control "creates more problems than it solves" is again a clear argument from authority. Any reader who is supportive of rent control laws would read this as a clearly biased article. For the record I'm a not one of them (I actually own rental property) - I'm speaking from a point of view of Wikipedia NPOV policy and not about on my economic views. Coastside (talk) 16:00, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

• The flip side of this is to write this article with greater intellectual curiosity about support for various kinds of rent control. The flip attitude that the general public is unqualified to know what's good for it, or that sinister demagogues inflict it upon helpless rubes, or that those who support it are simply ignorant, or are mentally ill, actually undermines the economists' the case against rent control. If I wanted to build a case against vaccine resistors, I wouldn't demonize the very people whose minds I was trying to change. I wouldn't pretend their arguments didn't exist. I'd be happy to place objective fact alongside the very best case vaccine deniers (or climate change deniers, or whomever) can muster. The scientific evidence favoring vaccines, or man made climate change, is strong enough to withstand a charitable and comprehensive discussion of the other side's views. In the same way, if the economic case against rent control were really that strong, it would easily stand up to a full airing of the arguments in favor. I've taken a similar approach to writing about motorcycle safety (still a work in progress). I personally would never ride a motorcycle without a helmet, or tell anyone it was OK to do so. But I think the best way to prove why that is wise is to bend over backwards to understand the thinking of those who take the opposite view. When I imagine a Featured Article covering topics like rent control or motorcycle helmets, I envision a comprehensive summary of all sides, which fearlessly presents the best possible case for those I myself think are "wrong". --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent Qzekrom (talk) 21:25, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Coastside likes this.

Significant viewpoints missing

I tagged this with {{Too few opinions}}, as in the past. This article perpetually is in a state of being a polemic against rent control. It tends to be worked on by editors who define anybody who favors rent control as being unqualified to have an opinion, so the whole article is nothing but a list of announcements by select economists criticizing the idea. I'd suggest looking over Wikipedia:Describing points of view and working to summarize opinions of those who favor rent regulation without judging who they are or whether you happen to agree with them. The fact is, this is not a settled issue, and there are many significant points of view on both sides. Treating it as being one sided is a violation of Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The thing is that rent control is a settled issue, as far as the economics are concerned. Economics is the predominant field of study when it comes to market regulation. NPOV requires that all significant viewpoints be accorded their due weight, and the predominant viewpoint of economic experts is the most significant, and is rightly accorded the most space in the article. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

If rent control was a settled issue as you assert, then everybody would reject it everywhere. But they don't. This article must explain why that is. It doesn't—and it won't—until editors embrace the sources that describe why. Binksternet (talk) 05:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. If it's a settled issue, then what is up with all these economists expending so much time and effort arguing against it? Who are they arguing with? You'd think they'd have something better to do than railing against an idea that nobody supports. But of course there are a large number of places that have these policies, and for decades opponents have failed to remove price controls on rents in many cities. Why? Who fought to keep them in place? They didn't enact themselves, and they didn't keep themselves on the books. People did that. Perhaps they were not economists, but whomever they were, they were significant enough to win those political battles. There must be reasons why rent controls exist, and whomever it is that is behind them, we should let them speak for themselves. The article says "The classic objective is..." That's a nice bit of passive voice and agency avoidance. Whose objective? Objectives don't simply exist floating out in the universe. People have objectives. Which people? What do they say?

It's simply not that hard to find out who supports rent controls, and to adequately summarize why they support them.

Look at vaccine controversies. It's not even a GA or FA but it's at least an article that tries to cover the subject properly. It isn't simply a laundry list of reasons why doctors say vaccines are good. It explains why some people have resisted vaccinations, and it tells us what their reasons are. Even if you think people who support rent control are loons, they still exist and they can speak. Their significance is demonstrated by their power to effect policy. There are politicians and political parties who support it. What do they say? It's easy enough to find out.

And in fact it's not even that simple. The reasons for wanting rent controls have a basis in real economics. Here is a brief summary of a study that pointed out that while the standard economists' objections were validated, there are also tangible benefits to some people, and that goes a long way to explaining why some people support the policy. R. Arnott's paper 'Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?' sits there at the very bottom of the article, but one set of points contained in it are utterly ignored. One point of view is covered in depth, the other is treated as nonexistent. Why?

If we want to insist the anti-rent control arguments by the cited economists win hands down, that's great, but it's obvious that we fail to demonstrate the efficacy of those arguments when we make no mention at all of what they are arguing against. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

You're right. If there are high quality sources discussing other aspects of rent control, then those should be included as well. Right now there isn't much. However, I still believe that ultimately most of the article should be about the economic view, since I think that is the most directly relevant to the subject, with lots of high quality sources. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 07:42, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that among the general public, this is not a settled issue....like climate change/science. Yes, we should report on it in the same manner, with the largest part of the article being devoted to the science in the field, to help the public understand that.

I included this quote from the 2009 Blair Jenkins review because I think it addresses some of the comments you (Dennis) just made: "If rent-control is such a "no-brainer," why bother to scrutinize the literature? The cluster of restrictions persists in roughly 140 jurisdictions in the United States as of 2001. As Hazlett (1982) notes, "economists have been notoriously thorough in convincing themselves of the destructive effects of rent control and notoriously inept at convincing anyone else" (278). Better understanding of the issue might help correct the error, prevent other governments from falling into it, and promote an understanding among more than just economists. Also, better understanding is an end in itself."

Maybe this statement should be explicitly included in the text of the article, not just a quote in a reference? It would help explain the discrepancy between the views of experts and the general public.

Also, R. Arnott's paper 'Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?' is from 1995 and basically states that (paraphrasing) "while first generation rent controls are bad, second generation rent controls may not be so bad, and should be evaluated independently". We now have 20+ years of more research on second gen RC with similar (though quantitavely less) negative impacts. ---Avatar317 (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Map showing cities with rent control

Cities over 500,000 people with some form of rent control or rent regulation

I started thinking about the absurdity of a Wikipedia page devoted purely to economists poo poohing a system that is part of everyday life in so many cities, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin... so I wanted to get a rough idea of just how many cities have rent controls of some kind. Pretty much every city in China and India -- so right there you have like 1/3 of humanity. And Moscow. Istanbul. Mexico City. Many of these cities had changes in their rent regulations in the last 20 years, and the political debates there provide plenty of source material for us to find what both sides have to say for themselves.

Just listing all the cities over 500k people with rent control of some kind, and mapping them, you get something like this, to the right. It's a work in progress, and I'm still gathering sources and filling in details. Eventually this map could serve as a good lead image for this article.

I don't think any economists in India or China were consulted when the American Economic Association surveyed on the question of rent control. They obviously have a narrow view, limited to Americans, and even then I don't think a full cross section of American economists were surveyed. Was economist Joshua Mason surveyed? He said "The real goal of rent control is protecting the moral rights of occupancy. Long-term tenants who contributed to this being a desirable place to live have a legitimate interest in staying in their apartments." Concepts like this aren't quantified by the simple question of "how much housing stock do we obtain? of what quality?" Again and again we hear from people -- many of them economists, whom the American Economic Association seems to think don't exist -- who say they get a different answer because they are asking different questions.

You don't have to agree or disagree with the reasons behind rent control policies. But Wikipedia has a commitment to trusting our readers, even with "dangerous ideas". If 2.6 billion people in India and China, and hundreds of millions of others in cities all over the world, are deluded about rent control, we will still tell our readers what that "delusion" is. The Turkish government's justification for maintaining their policies is probably not the same as the administration of Mexico City or of Moscow. Whatever those reasons are, they are clearly significant points of view.

Look at this map. It's laughable to claim that those who favor rent control are "fringe" opinions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:02, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

If there is a different consensus amongst Chinese or Indian economists, then we should add that to the article, but the fact that something is practiced widely does not mean there isn't an expert consensus against it! (see also: stringent drug laws, oil subsidies, homeopathy). Edit: to be clear, there is an expert consensus that stringent drug laws are not a good thing, but that doesn't stop many countries from introducing/keeping them. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Nobody proposed deleting any content about economics. The problem is the tendentious removal of anything not from economists.

This comparison with drugs makes no sense. You think Wikipedia should treat whatever is illegal as “bad”? We can’t say anything about illegal drugs that the government doesn’t approve of? Which government? Which drugs? And I thought you were talking about experts. I can see giving preference for the American Medical Association, since they do issue official opinions. The Astropysical Union issues judgements on whether Pluto is a planet. But economists? All we have is this one poll of some Americans by an organization that only represents some economists.

Articles on Al Qaeda or the Third Reich tell us what they were thinking. Readers want to understand their motives even if everyone opposes them. Rent control is hardly so notorious. The simple and obvious fact is that it’s not settled. Some American economists might not approve, but not everyone takes their opinions seriously. —Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• I got no dog in this fight, and don't want one. But that map needs to have the sources annotated in the file description, preferably in a table listing also the sources for population. GMG^talk 22:00, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, definitely. I'm going to do a copule more updates and give complete sources. I'm thinking about using different colors to show the general type of rent control, like strict price ceilings, vacancy control, or vacancy decontrol. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:15, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I restored the image, and added a {{Citation needed}} tag. The very top of WP:No original research says "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." The footnote says "By exists, the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article."

    I hope no one is claiming there are no sources in existence which tell us whether or not a city has rent controls of some kind. There are copious sources that cover the topic. If this article were a WP:Good article candidate, the lack of sources would be a good reason to deny it, but there's no good reason to delete material for which sources exist. Sorry I left the footnotes off. I'll add them as soon as possible. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

That's not really how this works. Maps are one of the most contentious areas on Commons and so it's important to be meticulous in where our data is coming from. This could be a very valuable map in illustrating the world wide distribution of the policy. Again, I don't really have any strong opinion about, nor do I particularly know very much about the issue of rent control, but we source first, and we add second. If you want to make a comprehensive map, and I thank you for doing so, but you have to get your ducks in a row first and then we can add it to the article. GMG^talk 23:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

"That's not really how this works." Really? I was under the impression that it works the way WP:NOR says it works. "we source first, and we add second". Ideally perhaps, but it's not mandatory, according to WP:NOR, WP:Editing policy and WP:Verifiability, which says "Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step." When you insist "source first, add second", no exceptions, you're applying the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons rules to non-BLP issues. The whole reason we have a special policy for BLPs is that the general policy that applies to everything else is not that strict. If what you say were true, then the BLP policy wouldn't need to exist at all.

When you have no idea whether or not this map is accurate, and haven't checked at all to see how verifiable it is, you're taking a bureaucratic and WP:POINTy approach. The WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY policy exists to tell you not to demand process for the sake of process.

Right now we have an article in poor shape, and editors are working step by step to make it better. It can't be made perfect in one edit. It can't be made perfect by one editor. The whole point of the collaborative process is that one editor can expand an article, another editor can make adjustments, another can add one source, and someone else can add more sources. We have an entire policy page devoted to spelling this out: Wikipedia:Editing policy. It says "Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles." Instead of banging on the revert button, you could have looked up whether or not there is any rent control in France, and added one of the missing sources to support the existing Global Properties source. You'd have made the article one step closer to where it needs to be. WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM exists to tell you that that is how you should handle non-BLP sourcing issues. No matter what kind of controversies are vexing editors on Commons, over here on en.wikipedia.org, we have a set of policies that guide us on how to build an encyclopedia, and how to not be an obstacle to building it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:28, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

The image of worldwide rent regulation is a fantastic idea for the top of the article. The Wikipedia policy WP:V doesn't say that information must be explicitly sourced with citations to be seen in a Wikipedia article, just that it must be verifiable as published in a reliable source somewhere. And all of the information in the image can be verified, so I don't see the problem with showing it to our readers. As a convenience, we should certainly work toward finding explicit sources for each city, but that process should not hold us back in placing the image in front of the reader. Binksternet (talk) 00:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

We do not add information to an article because there might be sources somewhere eventually that supports it. I agree that such a map is a great idea. Dennis made it, and so it really shouldn't be all that difficult for them to document where they got the information from. If they cannot or will not, then when we have complex unsourced statistical maps, where the creator fails to include where the information is drawn from, then we nominate them for deletion, both on the English Wikipedia as well as Wikimedia Commons. GMG^talk 00:47, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, if the image is added to the article again without providing sources for the data, then I will nominate it for deletion. GMG^talk 00:56, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Nominate what for deletion? The whole article? Or the image? Regardless, that kind of threat a Disruptive editing and Gaming the system. You really should relax and step back from the edge here. Using the deletion process to win content disputes is not a wise choice. Have you noticed that one source has been added already? Why are you behaving this way? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

My intention isn't to be unreasonable. But you've got a map there with probably 60 or more data points. I have no way of telling where you got that data from. Even just population statistics...CIA World Factbook? Official government census? What year census? How am I to reduce your visual representation back down to a number to tell the difference and check it? How to I even tell what scale you're using? I've been I think quite clear that I'm talking about deletion of the image. But I am certainly talking about deletion the image if you absolutely refuse to provide data. Because (as I've said already) that is what we do with complex uncited statistical maps. They're nearly impossible to reverse engineer, which is why it's important that you provide citations. GMG^talk 01:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with GMG. The article doesn't mention China or India at all. Adding an image (without sourcing) claiming that a lot of cities there have it is unacceptable. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:59, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm fairly confident the China information in that image is inaccurate. Even the website listed in the source says (at [3]) There is no rent control in major centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:20, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but according to other sources what they mean is that rent control laws in China are widely flouted. The same can be said for several other countries. If we want to go down that rabbit hole, we'd end up saying marijuana is legal throughout the United States. I wanted to keep it simple and provide a basic map of what the laws on the books say, avoiding the question of what the de facto law is. But I will double check and correct for city-by-city variation in China. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:42, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree with others that the map shouldn't be included until we have sources added for the data. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 12:21, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hopefully I'll have time to come back to this soon. I've got conflicting sources about rent control in China, and I'm not sure there's a way to simplify that in a graphical way. I'm probably going to punt and leave China out, possibly with a note, maybe coloring the region as being an exception. Generally the kinds of economic goals in other countries, even relatively socialist economies, are similar enough that it makes sense to talk about the effects of having or not having some kind of rent control. But China in many ways is not comparable, and so perhaps not really relevant.

  I'm probably also going to add a table of the same data to the article as a companion to the map, rather than just footnote the caption. That will make it even easier to verify the underling data. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:24, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

I think at least four viewpoints should be represented in this article:

• Economic impact — the impact on the housing market
  • First-generation rent controls — the aforementioned consensus
  • Second-generation rent controls — for why I separated them, see Arnott 1995
• Social impact — the impact on communities and social relations
• Politics — why rent regulation is so popular among voters and political activists

My two cents: In my opinion, there isn't a clean distinction between "economic" and "social" impact. Economic and social effects are inextricably linked because the economy is embedded in a particular social system. For example, rent control "creates bitter tenant-landlord relations" and "increases urban blight" according to this article—these are non-economic social consequences. Qzekrom (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I tend to think of economists as having their heads in the clouds, sometimes being so far from the real world that they can't even grasp how disconnected they are. But even I have trouble believing there are economists who think bitter tenant-landlord relations or urban blight can be called non-economic. ISO 10668 is a real thing, right? Brand valuation is real, isn't it? If potential tenants hate a landlord, that changes market value. If a neighborhood has a bad reputation, it's value decreases. Can you cite this claim for me? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:14, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay, "non-economic" isn't the right word. My point was that these effects impact the culture and social relations in the neighborhood in addition to the housing market there. Perhaps "exo-economic" is more appropriate, but I've never seen that word in use by professional economists or sociologists. But we're getting off topic. Let's talk about the article. Qzekrom (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I like your five sections, especially the social aspects and voter preference sections, which will help the reader understand the what's going on. Regarding social apects, of course these things are economic, too, but they are specifically social in nature, especially when tenants and voters are observed to be acting in opposition to purely economic analysis. Binksternet (talk) 22:40, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there's no easy way to sort out this, and the proposed structure is as good as any for now, as long as we're not taking it as writ in stone. We have very few sources that even agree on what it means to be neutral on this issue. What is or isn't science, what is fact and what is opinion. I've already pointed out elsewhere how often partisans on this talk right past each other, not even acknowledging that they're not measuring with the same yardsticks. So we should do the best we can with what we have, and perhaps come up with something better in the future. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:58, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

That all sounds fine. This article is so incomplete that it would be very difficult for a good-faith addition of sourced content to make the article worse. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

We can also incorporate material from Rent control in the United States § Arguments for and § Arguments against. Qzekrom (talk) 01:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the idea having the three sections you suggest. In addition, I think that a "History" section, similar to what is in the Rent_control_in_the_United_States article would be good to give background. Here are my thoughts on those suggested sections:

1) "Economic impact" - I oppose dividing this into 1st and 2nd gen RC. The economists' polls and literature reviews encompass both and give results on both types already.

(R. Arnott's paper 'Time for Revisionism on Rent Control?' is from 1995 and basically states that (paraphrasing) "while first gen RC is bad, second gen RC may not be so bad, and should be evaluated independently". We now have 20+ years of more research on second gen RC with similar (though quantitatively less) negative impacts.)

2) "Social impacts" - good, but this section should source info from social SCIENTISTS = SOCIOLOGISTS, not Jane-on-the-street's opinion on how it affects her, or any opinions of political activists.

3) "Political" - good to explain to the public the positions of those in support/opposed and why, as long as it is clearly stated as their opinions.

[Sidenote NOT related to the structure of the article] A November 2018 public "poll" on rent control (an election), found 60% of voters opposed: see 2018 California Proposition 10. If you think this section should explain "why rent regulation is so popular among voters" than it should have ~60% devoted to explaining why the majority of voters in California opposed it, for WP:DUE, unless broader than just CA polling (and actual voting) data can be found, with different numbers. ---Avatar317 (talk) 22:32, 20 February 2019 (UTC)Avatar317

1. Can you cite a poll on economists' attitudes toward second-gen rent controls? Even if most economists regard it as a distinction without a difference for policy purposes (and I remain skeptical of your claim), the first gen/second gen distinction matters to most pro–rent control activists (this article addresses it, concluding that while second-gen rent controls are less harmful, they also have little effect).
2. I sharply disagree with the notion that only social scientists can be experts on social issues. Community members' perceptions of policies affecting their communities are important too and should be discussed. As a moral matter, policymakers in a democratic society must address the concerns of stakeholders, because they must secure the consent of the governed; to think they know better because they consulted "the experts" is arrogant and makes them appear out of touch, which erodes public trust in government and academia. Even if you think the economists are right and most renters are wrong, their views are useful information for policymakers. (Added 16:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC): That's why we have the Politics section.)
3. You have a point there. However, the Prop 10 statistic can be misleading without context; more than half of Californians are homeowners. Homeowners, renters, and homeless people are likely to have different perspectives on housing issues, and their opinions should be treated differently.

Qzekrom (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, I certainly don't mean that a single person's experiences should override data aggregated from thousands of observations or survey responses. I'm just saying that what constituents value in social policies is as important as what policymakers value. Qzekrom (talk) 04:28, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely we should incorporate a summary of thoughts from sociologists, respected authors, professional journalists, and the writings of public servants such as city planners who have to make this stuff work in the real world. The Haas Institute has a 2018 analysis for rent control in California which is really useful. One of the co-authors is Berkeley's former housing director, Stephen Barton, PhD, who clarifies the issues for the lay reader. If we don't cite Barton then we're making an error of omission. Binksternet (talk) 05:50, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Definitely good to include in the article. Qzekrom (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: 1. Third paragraph in "Economists' views" section in the article. NYC and SF's RC policies are 2nd gen. ---Avatar317^(talk) 21:14, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I see that the SF Chronicle article cites this Urban Institute blog post, which states, among other things: "the poor, the elderly, and families—the three major groups targeted for benefits of rent control—were no more likely to be found in controlled than uncontrolled units." This isn't a bunch of bootlickers railing against rent control—the Urban Institute is considered liberal. Qzekrom (talk) 21:47, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, I definitely agree that we should discuss rent control's history. A lot of these policies popped up during wartime. Qzekrom (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Notified WikiProjects

I've invited folks from the Economics, Urban planning, and Sociology WikiProjects to contribute to the NPOV discussion. Qzekrom (talk) 07:20, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S. I would most appreciate your input on these questions, which I think would give us clarity on how to proceed:

• We have sources asserting that the majority of economists believe rent controls reduce the quality and quantity of available housing, among other effects. Is this claim representative of the economics field as a whole? How should we use these sources in the article?
• Do most sociologists who study housing agree with this view?

Qzekrom (talk) 07:35, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Summary of economic literature

I created a table in my userspace summarizing what the economic literature says about various predicted effects of rent control. There appears to be consensus on some of these issues but not others. Feel free to fix anything I missed or got wrong at User:Qzekrom/effects of rent control. I included the Jenkins paper as a starting point, but feel free to add columns for other literature reviews as well.

	Finding	Jenkins 2009
Tenant behavior	Tenants of rent-controlled units are more likely to stay put	Yes
	Tenants of rent-controlled units accept longer commutes in return for lower rents	Yes (Krol and Svorny 2005)
	Tenants of rent-controlled units are less likely to become homeowners	Yes (Gyourko and Linneman 1989)
Maintenance	Rent controls decrease maintenance overall (landlords decrease their maintenance effort while tenants increase theirs)	Maybe
Quantity of housing	Rent controls discourage construction of new housing	Maybe
	Rent controls encourage landlords to convert rental units into non-rentable housing	Yes
Rents	Rent controls decrease rents for controlled rental units	Yes
	Rent controls decrease rents for controlled rental units (long run)	No (Early 2000)
	Vacancy allowances nullify rent controls' effects on rents	Yes
	Rent controls increase rents for uncontrolled rental units	Yes
	Rent controls increase rents for uncontrolled rental units (long run)	No (Early and Phelps 1999)
	Proximity to rent-controlled units decreases rents for uncontrolled rental units	Yes (Sims 2007)
Homelessness	Rent controls increase homelessness	No consensus
Distributional effects	Rent controls effectively target low-income tenants (i.e. tenants benefit more from rent control the lower their incomes)	No
	Rent controls effectively target elderly tenants	No (Navarro 1985)
	Rent controls effectively target disabled tenants	Not stated
	Rent controls effectively target tenants of color	Maybe Blacks benefit more than whites (Olsen 1972) Blacks and Puerto Ricans benefit less than whites (Gyourko and Linneman 1989)
	Rent controls reduce racial segregation	No (Glaeser 2002)

I hope this table helps us start thinking about how best to organize our reporting on the research. Qzekrom (talk) 05:27, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

This is useful, but I have concerns about the review by Blair Jenkins. At the time it was published, the author had only just completed her undergraduate degree [4]. I'm not sure how much credence to give it. It was peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal, but it's the work of a student, not an expert or professional. Her description of her methodology makes it sound like she took great care in creating a comprehensive review of every economic paper published on the subject of rent control, but I cannot judge if her approach was consistent with the standards of economic research. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:17, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I can't judge either, and I particularly can't tell (via my own analysis in the table) when Jenkins is saying that most papers on some aspect of rent regulation are in agreement. It does seem like some aspects of rent control are in dispute. Qzekrom (talk) 00:25, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

History of rent regulation

I found a source for the history of rent regulation titled "Short History of Rent Control Laws". The second section (which starts on page 7) covers ancient and early modern history of rent control in Europe as well as late modern history. I think this is a really interesting take on the subject and we should include it. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 04:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Found sources on rent regulation by country

I just found two articles dealing with different countries' experiences with rent control:

• Oslo, Norway
• Philippines

Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 03:29, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Imbalance of San Francisco and California in text

A couple of recent additions[5][6] made by Avatar317 have created an imbalance in this general article, putting far too much emphasis on California and San Francisco. The first problem is that Avatar317 copied and pasted text from more specific articles, text which ignores the wider focus of this article. The second problem is that the prose we compose for this article should be discussing many cities and locations, with comparisons and analysis made to help the reader gain an overview. The recent additions aren't moving us toward that goal. Binksternet (talk) 04:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that there is CURRENTLY too much emphasis on California, but that is because we LACK info that we should have from other cities, states, and countries. This should be remedied by improving the article through additions, because I think the article is better now than not having the additions I added. If this article is about WORLDWIDE rent control, then we also have a *HUGE* western world bias in the "Rent regulation by country" section...no info on Middle east, India, China, Africa, etc.

The "Political" section was empty before I added the first edit you noted, and that is the only rent control initiative that I know of that happened statewide anywhere in the US in recent decades. (MA voted statewide in 1994.) (Some CA cities had RC on ballots in the last five years.)

We could move some of my additions to the Rent control in the United States article when we have more broad and general statements with which to replace otherwise empty sections.

If an individual study (like the Diamond study I just added) gets press nationwide, then I would say that it should be included in the general article. That study has two nationwide sources: Governing and CityLab, and there may be more.

Let's also remember that ONLY FOUR STATES (and DC) have rent control laws, (they were abolished in all states except NY after WWII, and re-created in those five areas in the 1970's) so any recent empirical rent control research/studies must be done in those states. ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:28, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

We can shrink it to 1-2 paragraphs so we're not giving it undue weight. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 05:18, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Concur with Binksternet and Qzekrom. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:15, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

We could potentially delete this sentence The authors stated that "This substitution toward owner occupied and high-end new construction rental housing likely fueled the gentrification of San Francisco, as these types of properties cater to higher income individuals." as this applies more to gentrification than rent control, though it is being shown as a consequence or effect of rent control...what do others think? ---Avatar317^(talk) 20:16, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

That sentence is the authors of the study discussing the consequences of rent control, so if we're going to include the study, it would be wrong to remove that sentence. I think this focus on California and San Francisco is a larger problem with the structure of this article, which focuses on a few specific recent studies instead of giving a larger overview of the subject, which maybe could be changed by relying on more general sources, like metastudies, academic books that discuss the subject as a whole, or university textbooks. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 21:03, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Binksternet: See my comment about Oslo and the Philippines. In general, we should decenter the experiences of the United States and Western Europe in this article. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 03:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC about article titles

NO CONSENSUS:

There is no consensus for any moves. There is no prejudice against a opening a Wikipedia:Requested moves discussion as suggested by some RfC participants.

Cunard (talk) 09:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

How should rent regulation/rent control be referred to in article titles?

Option A: "Rent regulation"

• Rent control in New York → Rent regulation in New York
• Rent control in Ontario → Rent regulation in Ontario
• Rent control in Scotland → Rent regulation in Scotland
• Rent control in the United States → Rent regulation in the United States
• History of rent control in England and Wales → History of rent regulation in England and Wales

Option B: "Rent control"

• Rent regulation → Rent control
• Rent regulation in Canada → Rent control in Canada
• Rent regulation in England and Wales → Rent control in England and Wales

Qzekrom (talk) 23:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Qzekrom, I think you should use WP:RM#Requesting multiple page moves since you're requesting multiple moves. Otherwise this could get very messy. R2 (bleep) 01:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo: How do I use that to propose two multi-moves at the same time (one for "option A" and one for "option B") when they are mutually exclusive? Qzekrom (talk) 01:27, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I think the best way is to pick the one you'd prefer, explain in your comment that you're open to the other option, and then add notes on the other talk pages alerting editors that those articles are also being considered for a move. Remember that there's always an Option C: maintain status quo. R2 (bleep) 01:33, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I feel this is a cleaner and more neutral way to do it, though. I'm leaning towards option B because it's the more common term, but from re-reading the article, it looks like "rent regulation" is a superset of rent control that includes other forms of regulation as well. Qzekrom (talk) 02:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• (invited randomly by a bot). Use WP:RM. Check MOS:COMMONALITY. Go lightly. Where rent regulation is intended as a more general term, I think the title should reflect that. Consistency is not always an improvement. Often, life's complexities must be embraced. Jojalozzo (talk) 11:40, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
• No moves. The article names are suitable to their topics, and don't need to be changed for consistency. It would be enough to make sure that the proposed new article name redirects to the existing name. Binksternet (talk) 14:24, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
• Unknown/no opinion - It is my understanding (which could be wrong) that "rent control" is more an American term, and "rent regulation" tends to be used in the rest of the world, for similar laws/policies. Does anyone know whether Wikipedia tracks, and whether there is anyway of seeing statistics as to what percentage of people read the articles (this article is in the English wikipedia; different language versions can have differing articles on the identical subject) from North America vs. rest of world? A "Page information" link which also graphs by IP Geo-locatation? This would allow us to choose the name more commonly understood to the majority of our readers. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC about describing extent of disagreement

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should this article state that most economists agree about the effects of rent control? This would be a precise statement as to which questions about rent control's effects are resolved and which are still open, not a blanket statement that all questions are resolved. Qzekrom (talk) 23:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

See my comment above. In short, no. Coastside (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2019 (UTC) extra text added 22:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• No. At least, not as stated with the current sourcing. Several problems:

1. "Agreeing on the effects of rent control" is awfully vague and doesn't describe those effects, which isn't very informative. At a minimum we'd need to say what the agreement among economists is. It seems from reading the article content that different economists are saying different things about the effects of rent control, so this might be difficult.

2. I don't think the content about the Jenkins review is reliably sourced. The review was published in 2009, the year after Jenkins received her bachelor's degree. [7] She has no other publication history, and while her review has been cited by a number of opinion sources, as far as I can tell it has received zero mention in the peer reviewed literature or other reliable sources since publication. The Valdez source we include that cites it is a Forbes contributor piece written by the director of a pro-growth advocacy group, not an economist or journalist. There is consensus at WP:RSN that Forbes contributor pieces are generally not reliable.

3. The IGM poll results shouldn't be overinterpreted. They don't say anything about "most economists" (41 economists is not a majority of economists in the world) and they don't say that the 41 economists agree about the broad effects of rent control in general. I'm not trying to shoot the IMG poll down--I know nothing of its reliability and am presuming that it's worthy of inclusion. It's just that when we cite material from a primary source like this, we're prohibited from analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, or synthesizing it. This is why we're generally very cautious about how we use poll results in any part of the encyclopedia.

4. The Tatian content is on the best footing, verification-wise. Tatian is a well-published expert, and his conclusions have been published in a number of reliable sources. The problem, however, is that the sources we cite for him ([8], [9], [10]) are about Tatian's own conclusions and don't say anything about other economists agreeing on anything.

In sum, I think the Jenkins paragraph should be deleted, and it may be possible to come up with a summary sentence for saying something about "many economists" (not "most economists"). But the proposal doesn't satisfy our verifiability and original research policies. R2 (bleep) 17:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo Re: 2. Maybe you missed this, but the in Tatian article he cites the Jenkins study and re-iterates its conclusion, which to me means it was at least reviewed by him, and this would seem to me to be a secondary academic source for the Jenkins study. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I did notice that, but the Tatian article isn't peer-reviewed. I remain troubled by the fact that the Jenkins article was written by an undergrad and hasn't been cited by a single peer-reviewed journal article. R2 (bleep) 00:25, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo and Avatar317: I removed one copy of the Jenkins paragraph as it was duplicated word-for-word in the lead. I also flagged the Jenkins, Beyer, and Valdez sources with {{better source}}.

The Free trade article states in its lead section that economists have "a broad consensus" that free trade boosts economic growth, and it cites several sources for that claim. Among them: two papers by Paul Krugman, an op-ed by Greg Mankiw, a paper by William Poole, and three IGM surveys. Ahrtoodeetoo, do you think that these sources are adequate to verify the claims it makes on free trade? Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 01:16, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• No, not in Wikipedia's voice. Clearly a very strong case can be made against rent control, and we should describe those opinions fully. We can certainly mention that some important experts believe economists are unified in opposition to rent control. But we have many important experts who disagree about what we even disagree about. We have to acknowledge that there is disagreement about who even gets to have an opinion. Not everyone agrees on who counts as an economist, or which hemisphere's economists count. We have to acknowledge that many forms of rent control exist, and they are commonplace globally, in both wealthy, advanced countries, and in developing countries. This could be a really informative article if we take the approach that readers want to know the whole story. Consider also the points in Coastside's 3rd opinion above. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

• Yes The sources in the article (specifically those in the "Economists' Views" section) are sufficient to show that there is a long-standing consensus among academic economists, both internationally and in the United States specifically that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing available. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:05, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• No. Substantial disagreement exists in the literature on points such as homelessness, racism and new housing construction. Binksternet (talk) 14:22, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
  • @Red Rock Canyon and Binksternet: We can still say there is agreement on some aspects of rent control but not others. As R2 said we have to say what the agreement is. Qzekrom (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
    • Yes, we can and should tell the reader what are the points of general agreement, but I would argue against a blanket statement. Binksternet (talk) 22:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
      • That sounds like a good plan. There are some points of general agreement, and other points where there is no agreement, or mixed results in different surveys. We should describe both what economists believe they know about rent control and what economists do not know about rent control. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
• Yes - The sources show consensus from the majority of mainstream economists on the largest aspects of rent control's effects.

Here is a suggested wording, to try to avoid an 'argument from authority' by explaining the specific problems, why those problems arise, and acknowledging the benefits for controlled renters as part of the overall benefits/harms explanation.

In the field of economics, the vast majority of mainstream theory and empirical evidence support the conclusion that (by limiting the return on investment a landlord can receive) rent control reduces the quantity and quality of housing by discouraging investment in private housing.  Rent controlled tenants benefit from the insurance protecting them from large unexpected rent increases, while society overall bears costs including a reduced rental housing supply,...

---Avatar317^(talk) 01:29, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

• No to the original statement, as insufficiently supported and I think basically wrong. Something lesser from a cite might work, this was too broad and not from cites. I do like Avatar317 content/wording, but it needs to be coming from a strong cite source. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
• Yes - as someone somewhat versed in the field there is rather clear consensus that most rent control schemes (which themselves vary) have a negative impact on market quality. That being said, I wager that most political scientists would agree that as a populist move - rent control is quite effective and popular - garnering wide political/public support.Icewhiz (talk) 18:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• Pejoratives like "populist move" are the kind of value judgements that reveal a lack of neutral point of view. Yes, there are partisans in this debate how denigrate the other side as merely "populist", and we can express what they think with in-text attribution. The other side of that coin is to quote, say, some one like Doug Henwood calling the rent control "consensus" the "poster child for the ideological rigidity of economics as it is taught to impressionable youth" and "regurgitating what has become a mandatory morality tale, an unavoidable rite of passage in Econ 101."[11] That's nice and all, quoting the invective thrown by both sides, but we need help deciding what to say in Wikipedia's voice. What is a neutral way to this situation? I would suggest being more forthright about the actual goals of many rent control supporters, such as neighborhood stabilization, reducing turnover of residents during bubbles and periods of gentrification. Merely looking at the "market quality" that results in the long run ignores what is lost during the process of the market finding stable prices. People responsible for setting policy in the real world have to consider the fact that you can't get those people back after they're pushed out by rising rents. Economists might argue there is a price tag to the goal of neighborhood stabilization, but it's condescending to assume nobody is listening. They are looking at the cost and deciding they think it's worth paying. We can't have an entire article that narrowly regurgitates this Econ 101 dogma without giving due weight to all points of view, or pretending this one point of view is authoritative. Economists are not the authorities. No such social or legal status exists for economists. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• @Dennis Bratland: I agree with your point that the article should address common policy goals cited by rent control advocates. Does it effectively protect renters against sudden price increases? Does rent control increase "neighborhood stability" (defined, for instance, as the average period that a resident stays in the neighborhood)? What is the relationship between neighborhood stability and desirability (as measured by property values)? A great article on rent control would take stock of frequently asked questions and fill them in with answers from reliable sources.

I also agree that we should not simply "regurgitate" econ 101 arguments. That would do the reader a disservice. Instead, we should focus on empirical evidence, and mainly use theory to help explain it.

That said:

1. Theory cannot stand on its own; it must be backed by empirical evidence. However, it is possible for the evidence to point consistently to policy X having a particular effect on outcome Y, given conditions Z. If the empirical evidence were to indicate consistently that "a ceiling on rents decreases the quantity and quality of housing available," we could state this in Wikipedia's voice. This would be independent of the epistemic status of, say, rent control's effects on neighborhood stability; if it were found that rent ceilings increased stability, we could state that as well. One need not (and ought not) invoke "econ 101 dogma" to state something as fact.
2. I study economic sociology (okay, I'm taking an introductory course, but we're already reading seminal papers in the field). In this field, it is more widely accepted that social relations influence economic outcomes than in economics as a whole. Thus, you'll find scholars who are more sympathetic to the idea that neighborhood stability (as a form of social capital) has benefits for residents.
3. Although Peter Dorman is an economist, the blog post you cited is not a reliable source because it is not peer-reviewed. Also, he doesn't specialize in housing economics. In order to address the question of neighborhood stability, we need better sources, such as journal articles.
4. The field of economics (as a whole) is as close as it gets to an authority on economics. Circular, yes, but that's how science works—and science, though imperfect, is the best known way to discover knowledge.

Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 06:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, and I agree with this comment by User:Red Rock Canyon: The sources in the article (specifically those in the "Economists' Views" section) are sufficient to show that there is a long-standing consensus among academic economists, both internationally and in the United States specifically that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing available.

AND, yes I agree with this suggested wording by User:Avatar317, if it is well cited, with strong sources to support it:

  In the field of economics, the vast majority of mainstream theory and empirical evidence support the conclusion that (by limiting the return on investment a landlord can receive) rent control reduces the quantity and quality of housing by discouraging investment in private housing.  Rent controlled tenants benefit from the insurance protecting them from large unexpected rent increases, while society overall bears costs including a reduced rental housing supply,...    

Peter K Burian (talk) 13:06, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

P.S. It is not a scholarly treatise, but this article does a good job in summarizing the economics of rent control, pro and con: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2018/05/31/rent-control-what-it-means-for-the-real-estate-marketplace/#1bab55147670 .. Rent Control: What It Means For The Real Estate Marketplace

Here is one part of the article, and the full report on the Stanford study would be worth finding as a better source: A Stanford study found that while rent control provided benefits to covered tenants, the reduced rental housing supply caused more widespread rent increases. Landlords dealing with rent control should consider this when contemplating large increases in rents, which may attract media buzz.Peter K Burian (talk) 13:14, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Peter K Burian: The Stanford study is here: (used to be at the NBER link) and the media articles covering the Stanford study and a synopsis of it can be found here: Gentrification_of_San_Francisco#Rent_control's_contribution_to_gentrification ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:53, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Peter K Burian and Avatar317: I think this NYTimes article may be a more authoritative source for the state of academic knowledge on RC. Forbes contributor pieces are generally not reliable, although this doesn't look like it's a contributor piece per se. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 15:05, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: That source looks good to me. Conor Dougherty does lots of articles on housing in the NYT, a google search will show that, in addition to this info about him on the NYT site:

Conor Dougherty is an economics reporter at The New York Times. His work focuses on the West Coast, real estate and wage stagnation among U.S. workers. Mr. Dougherty has covered economics and real estate on and off for a decade at both The Times and The Wall Street Journal. Before that he worked at The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Los Angeles Business Journal. He lives in Oakland, Calif., and is a Bay Area native. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avatar317 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Avatar317: Sounds great. We can submit the Forbes article to Reliable sources/Noticeboard if we're unsure about it. Indeed, the Forbes piece is a contributor piece. The tooltip next to the word CommunityVoice reads: "Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 05:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• Yes (as RfC creator). The following economics articles claim there is "broad consensus among economists" on a given issue:
  • Brexit: The broad consensus among economists is that Brexit will likely reduce the UK's real per capita income in the medium term and long term, and that the Brexit referendum itself had damaged the economy.
  • Free trade: There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth. (6 sources) It then goes on to qualify this claim: However, liberalization of trade can cause significant and unequally distributed losses, and the economic dislocation of workers in import-competing sectors.

By contrast, Minimum wage says that the level of consensus has changed over time.

• In the lead section: Supply and demand models suggest that there may be welfare and employment losses from minimum wages. However, if the labor market is in a state of monopsony (with only one employer available who is hiring), minimum wages can increase the efficiency of the market. There is debate about the effect of minimum wages.
• In the section "Empirical studies": Until the mid-1990s, a general consensus existed among economists, both conservative and liberal, that the minimum wage reduced employment, especially among younger and low-skill workers.

With adequate sourcing, we can make a similar statement about rent control. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 00:19, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Caveat: While we can describe rent control in terms of its effects on economic output, wages, or other objectively measurable metrics, we should avoid making implicit value judgments in Wikipedia's voice, such as that rent control results in a "societal loss". Value judgments in economics depend on the social welfare function used; in general, deadweight loss in economics does not equate to societal loss unless you're using the Benthamite welfare function. I made a similar argument at Talk:Free trade. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 05:08, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Addendum: The word consensus should only be used in economics articles in the limited sense of a scientific consensus. Since value judgments are inherently subjective, there is no such thing as a scientific consensus that "rent control is a societal loss." Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 16:35, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• No In order to make the statement you need a source that says, "most economists agree." You then need to say something about the dissenting economist - who are they, how big are they relative to most? If CATO has more economists than the Brookings Institute, does that skew the count? And there is nuance. The implication is that removing rent controls would not have a negative effect on anyone, even in the short term, which is dubious. TFD (talk) 19:27, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

There are such sources in the article already, and it's very easy to find more. There are the surveys themselves, primary sources like [12], which show the extent of the agreement numerically (16.6% "agree with provisos" and 76.3% "generally agree" that a ceiling of rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available). As well, there are articles discussing the consensus, like [13] ("And yet economists from both the right and the left are in almost universal agreement that rent control makes housing problems worse in the long run.") If we limit it to a specific statement about rent control's effect on the quality and quantity of housing available, which I believe is the proposal in the RFC, then there are countless sources available to back up that statement. I doesn't say there are no benefits to rent control, just that there is a strong consensus among economists that there are costs. Edit: For example, there's sources like this (from the Brookings Institute) [14] where the author reviews and acknowledges the general agreement among economists that rent control has negative affects due to market distortions, and then also discusses possible benefits of rent control. That's why we need to discuss the economic consensus in this article, to give readers a full view of the effects of rent control, good and bad. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Postmortem for RfC

@Thryduulf: Thank you for closing this RfC that I started. I would be happy to facilitate or participate in further discussion about the validity of specific statements in the near future, depending on my availability. Are there any statements we should delete from the article based on the outcome of the RfC? Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 08:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Eliowwwwwwth.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yessel Garcia. Peer reviewers: Seanapplegate, Michelleho1100, Kjwonglam.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)