The long-run U-shaped patterns of economic inequality are standardly explained by basic economic trends (Piketty's rg), taxation policies, or 'great levelers,' like catastrophes. This paper argues that housing policy, in particular rent control, is a neglected explanatory factor in understanding...

Welfare is traditionally understood through social security decommodifying labor markets or social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes' fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this paper...

Housing bubbles and crashes are catastrophic events for economies, implying enormous destruction of housing wealth, financial default risks, construction unemployment, and business cycle downturns. This paper investigates whether governmental housing policies can affect economies' propensity to...

In the shadow of homeownership and public housing, social policy through the regulation of private rental markets is a neglected and underestimated field of social policy. This paper, therefore, presents unique new data on the development of private tenancy legislation through the binary coding...

The (re-)introduction of rent regulation in the form of rent controls, tenant protection or supply rationing is back on the agenda of policymakers in light of rent inflation in many global cities. While rent control as social policy promises short-term relief, economists point to their negative...