system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do economists believe rent control policies harm the poor instead of carrying out the intent and helping them out greatly?
gpt
Rent control generally takes place in areas where there is a housing shortage and high demand (hence why rents are so high). Rent control places a cap on how much a landlord can charge. This may help the people who are already in these apartments, but that also places a cap on how profitable new housing can be. This discourages investment and development in new building complexes which further exacerbates the housing shortage, which is what leads to the high prices in the first place. It also prevents landlords from having extra cash to improve current housing units (not that all landlords would have done this without rent control, but there is zero incentive to improve your unit if you can’t see any returns from that investment). Rent control essentially puts the brakes on an already short housing supply, and the population will just continue to grow causing more scarcity.