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Mamdani Has a Point About Rent Control - The Atlantic

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In an interview, the candidate argued that the policy is essential to get voters on board with pro-housing reforms. Listen to more stories on the Noa app. Sign up for Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Few policies disgust academic economists quite like rent control. In the 1970s, the Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously described it as the “most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.” In a 2012 poll of prominent economists, just 2 percent said that rent-control laws have had “a positive impact” on the “amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.” (The Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler sarcastically proposed a follow-up survey question: “Does the sun revolve around the earth?”) Unsurprisingly, then, economists and policy wonks have almost universally disparaged New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to “freeze the

Listen − 1.0 x + Seek 0:00 15:56 Sign up for Work in Progress , a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Few policies disgust academic economists quite like rent control. In the 1970s, the Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously described it as the “most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.” In a 2012 poll of prominent economists, just 2 percent said that rent-control laws have had “a positive impact” on the “amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.” (The Nobel

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