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Price Ceiling
Rent Control Harms the Housing Market
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By
BACKGROUND
American housing prices have been increasing over the years last. In fact, the increase in the
size of the house was not accompanied by increased land availability and finally impact on the
occupancy price which also increased.
To help the poor, the American Government imposed rental controls that were adopted from
New York City as an emergency measure during World War Il, but it has been kept ever since.
Although rent control is most stringent in New York City, today more than 200 cities
(including Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) have some form of rent
control. More than 10 percent of rental housing in the United States is under rent control.
Rent controls are price ceilings or maximum rents set below equilibrium rents. Although
designed to keep housing affordable, the effect has been just the opposite – a shortage of
apartments. Rent control introduces many predictable distortions into the housing market.
First, as we have seen, rent control results in a shortage of apartments for rent. This is
evidenced by great difficulty and time required to find a vacant, rent-controlled apartment
usually cut maintenance and repairs to reduce costs, and so the quality of housing deteriorates.
Because of the shortages to which rent control gives rise, however, apartments vacated as a
result of inadequate maintenance can be filled easily and quickly. Third, rent control reduces
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the return on investment in rental housing, and so fewer rental apartments will be
constructed. Fourth, rent control encourages conversion into cooperation (since their price is
not controlled), which further reduces the supply of rent-controlled apartments. Finally, with
rent control, there must be a substitute for market price allocation, that is, non price rationing
is likely to take place as landlords favor families with higher incomes.
THEORY
Supply and demand are the most-used and important factors in economic decisions. Demand
means a willingness and ability to pay. In the law of demand, quantity demanded rises as price
falls, while quantity demanded falls as price rises, other things constant. In one sense, supply
is the mirror image of demand. Individuals control the factors of production inputs, or
resources, necessary to produce goods. Surely from this point of view we can see that the
quantity supplied rises as price rises while quantity supplied falls as price falls, other things
constant. So what is the price to determine to find the balance between supply and demand? In
supply/demand analysis, there is equilibrium that means the upward pressure on price is
exactly offset by the downward pressure on price. Equilibrium quantity is the amount bought
and sold at the equilibrium price. Equilibrium price is the price toward which the invisible
hand drives the market. At the equilibrium price, quantity demanded equals quantity supplied.
However that would be a shift in supply and demand where in the market those are imbalances
that affect the price in the market. Here is the diagram of effects of shifts of demand and
supply on price and quantity :
Equilibrium occurs where quantity supplied equals quantity demanded. In a model where
economic forces were the only forces operating, that’s true. In the real world, however, other
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forces—political and social forces—are operating, social and political forces also determine
price.
Government intervention is regulatory action taken by governments that seek to change the
decisions made by individuals, groups and organisations about social and economic matters.
Government intervention is used for pricing factors, social and political forces also determine
price, other factors include price ceilings and price floors, excise taxes and tariffs, quantity
restrictions and third-party-payer markets. If Government Intervention uses a Price Ceiling,
then:
1. When a government wants to hold prices down to favor buyers, it imposes a price ceiling
2. A price ceiling is a government-imposed limit on how high a price can be charged
3. Price ceilings create shortages
4. Price ceilings below equilibrium price will have an effect on the market
5. With price ceilings, existing goods are no longer rationed entirely by price so other
methods of rationing arise
ANALYSIS
Due to less profit, the landlord will limit their availability of apartment with price control $ 600
will impact to :
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1,6 mil.
SUMMARY
1. Government intervention to impose a price ceiling has good intentions - but it backfires to
turn the bad effect to the balance of supply and demand.
2. Cons the existence of resulting in the formation of new market prices, this is what makes
the supply line (S1) shift to the left (S2)
3. The shift of the curve to the left (S2) causes the standard price to rise as the quantity
quantity increases
4. It requires regulation from the government to return prices to equilibrium conditions
through price ceiling