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Free keywords:
Homeownership, rent control, tenure security, housing rationing, dynamic panel data model
Abstract:
In the shadow of homeownership and public housing, social policy through the regulation of
private rental markets is a neglected and underestimated eld of social policy. This paper,
therefore, presents unique new data on the development of private tenancy legislation through
the binary coding of rent control, the protection of tenants from eviction, and rental housing ra-
tioning laws across more than 25 countries and 100 years. This long-run perspective reveals the
dynamic eects of rent control on the rise of homeownership as the dominant tenure during the
20th century. We nd that both rent regulation and rationing legislation eectively increased
homeownership, but only up to a certain threshold. We suggest that the short-term lure of an
inexpensive social policy for tenants has led to the long-term marginalization of rental markets
in many countries.
