Despite the consensus on the inefficiencies it creates in the housing market, rent stabilization is often advocated by tenant groups as a housing affordability policy. I show that contrary to usual belief, the main benefit of rent regulation for tenants is not the protection it provides against...

Since its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century as the nation's ""metropolis,"" New York has faced the most challenging housing problems of any American city, but it has also led the nation in innovation and reform. The horrors of the tenement were perfected in New York at the same time that...