Verdrängung oder Sozialpolitik? Einfluss von Regulierungen auf die Wohneigentumsquote

Abstract

Using new data on the rent control, tenant protection and housing rationing as well as homeownership rates from 25 countries starting in the early 20th century up to the 2010s, the paper argues that stronger rent control and rationing of housing have contributed to the rise of homeownership. Originally passed as social policy to protect a considerable share of mostly urban residents, rent policies have rather crowded out the form of tenure they were meant to protect. They, thus, compete with the much more cost-intensive direct promotion of homeownership because they have made most countries homeownership-dominant over the past century.