{"id":2633,"date":"2025-07-04T14:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2025-07-04T15:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T15:02:17","slug":"congelar-y-fracasar-como-el-populismo-mamdani-destruiria-la-asequibilidad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/congelar-y-fracasar-como-el-populismo-mamdani-destruiria-la-asequibilidad\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeze and Fail: How Mamdani\u2019s Populism Would Undermine Affordability"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Freeze and Fail: How Mamdani\u2019s Populism Would Undermine Affordability<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Ra\u00fal Mathias Le\u00f3n Petersen<\/em>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Zohran Mamdani has recently won the NYC Democratic Party primary election on a platform centered around a rent freeze as the solution to the city\u2019s housing crisis. The pitch is appealing\u2014protect tenants, freeze rents, stop displacement.\n\nBut while the intention may be noble, the economics aren\u2019t just flawed\u2014they\u2019re harmful. Rent control is not housing policy; it\u2019s scarcity management. As any Econ 101 student learns, price caps below market levels lead to shortages. This isn\u2019t ideology\u2014it\u2019s basic supply and demand. In the context of housing, it means fewer new units, deteriorating maintenance, and inefficient allocation of space. Economists across the spectrum agree that rent control undermines the incentive to build and maintain housing. For instance, Diamond et al. (2019) analyses a 1994 law in San Francisco that expanded rent control to certain buildings but not others. In the short run, tenants benefited from protection against displacement. But over time, landlords converted rentals to owner-occupied units or short-term rentals, resulting in a 15% reduction in rental supply and a 5.1% increase in citywide rents.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Mamdani\u2019s proposal repeats a familiar mistake: offering short-term relief to a narrow group of renters while undermining long-term housing supply. Yes, New York City is expensive\u2014but that\u2019s why they need to build more, not freeze the market. Rent control traps people in homes they\u2019ve outgrown and restricts mobility. Glaeser and Luttmer (2003) find that in rent-controlled cities, housing is poorly allocated: older singles occupy multi-bedroom apartments while young families are priced out. That\u2019s not equity\u2014it\u2019s dysfunction.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>While rent freezes can increase tenant stability, that isn\u2019t always a benefit. In incomplete markets, tenants often can\u2019t insure themselves against rising rents. Mobile individuals may respond by relocating, but long-term tenants with deep neighbourhood ties\u2014family, jobs, schools\u2014face high costs from displacement. Some housing advocates argue rent control provides valuable insurance for these residents. Yet evidence suggests the benefits are uneven. Ahern and Giacoletti (2022) show that rent control in St. Paul, Minnesota, disproportionately benefited middle-class white renters, while low-income minorities saw little or no gain. In cases with wealthy landlords and poor tenants, wealth transfer was negligible. If the goal is redistribution, the policy fails: its impact runs counter to its intent. A broader review by Kholodilin (2024) finds near-universal agreement in the literature that rent control reduces housing quality. Of the dozens of studies reviewed, all but one concluded that regulated dwellings experience greater deterioration.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>True affordability doesn\u2019t come from punishing landlords or capping profits. It comes from expanding supply. That requires ending exclusionary zoning, streamlining permitting, incentivizing infill, and legalizing more multi-family housing near transit. If tenant vulnerability during this transition is a concern, adopt targeted policies: housing vouchers, nonprofit developers, and short-term, narrowly tailored stabilization. But these are band-aids\u2014not substitutes for construction. Mamdani offers a populist slogan: freeze rents. But slogans don\u2019t build homes. His policies would reduce supply, raise market rents, and worsen inequality between insiders and those still locked out.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 If Mamdani is serious about affordability\u2014not just protecting incumbents\u2014he needs to fight for abundant housing. And Mamdani\u2019s economic vision doesn\u2019t stop at housing. His call for city-run grocery stores, framed as \u201cfood justice\u201d, is more accurately described as a Soviet throwback with organic branding. Running a grocery store in New York City is already a low-margin business\u2014profits average just 1\u20132%. The sector is fragmented and competitive. Poor neighbourhoods are served mainly by small, independently owned groceries and bodegas. City-run stores wouldn\u2019t serve the public\u2014they\u2019d undercut local businesses while delivering bureaucratic inefficiency. Mamdani has no administrative experience to suggest such an experiment would succeed.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Then there\u2019s his proposed $30 minimum wage by 2030\u2014a number driven more by aesthetics than analysis. New York City has already committed to a $16.50 wage by 2025, indexed to inflation. Mamdani\u2019s plan would raise it to $20 in 2027, $23.50 in 2028, $27 in 2029, and $30 by 2030, followed by annual increases based on inflation or productivity. While small businesses would get more time, the end goal is the same. Notably, the city currently lacks the authority to set a separate minimum wage above the state level. Mamdani acknowledges this but insists there are \u201clegitimate routes\u201d around state pre-emption. Most academic research finds that large hikes in wage floors tend to reduce employment or hours, especially in small businesses. Higher wages sound great in theory, but combined with rent control and public grocery stores, they create a fantasy economy where investment dries up, businesses close, and shelves go empty. Prices don\u2019t vanish because laws say so\u2014they reappear as scarcity.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Ultimately, progressives should avoid repeating the mistakes of populists like Donald Trump. His desire to revive manufacturing was understandable, but his tariff policies accelerated deindustrialization. Economic fantasy, left or right, is still fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Policies most economists would oppose include freezing rents across all rent-stabilized apartments and establishing city-owned grocery chains. <\/span>Other proposals remain debatable in the literature: constructing 200,000 housing units over ten years with corresponding deregulation; universal free childcare for all New York City children aged 6 weeks to 5 years; fare-free city buses; and increasing corporate and top marginal income taxes on New Yorkers earning over $1 million annually. These may have merits\u2014but unlike rent control, they at least engage with economic trade-offs honestly.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/span>References:<\/b><\/p>

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Ahern, K. R. and Giacoletti, M. (2022). Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? the Redistribution of Wealth Caused by Rent Control.<\/span><\/p>

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Diamond, R., McQuade, T., and Qian, F. (2019). The effects of rent control expansion on tenants, landlords, and inequality: Evidence from San Francisco. American Economic Review, 109(9):3365\u20133394.<\/span><\/p>

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Glaeser, E. L. and Luttmer, E. F. P. (2003). The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control. American Economic Review, 93(4):1027\u20131046.<\/span><\/p>

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Kholodilin, K. A. (2024). Rent Control Effects Through the Lens of Empirical Research: An Almost Complete Review of the Literature. Journal of Housing Economics, page 101983.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congelar y fracasar: como el populismo Mamdani destruir\u00eda la asequibilidad Por Ra\u00fal Mathias Le\u00f3n Petersen \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Zohran Mamdani gan\u00f3 recientemente las elecciones primarias del Partido Dem\u00f3crata para la alcald\u00eda de la ciudad de Nueva York con una propuesta centrada en congelar los alquileres como soluci\u00f3n a la crisis habitacional de la ciudad. La propuesta […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,75,66,83,67,72,74,73,78,82,80,81,85,71,79,77,69,84,70,76],"class_list":["post-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asequibilidad-de-la-vivienda","tag-congelamiento-de-alquileres","tag-control-de-alquileres","tag-crisis-habitacional","tag-economia-progresista","tag-economia-urbana","tag-efectos-del-control-de-rentas","tag-errores-economicos-populistas","tag-escasez-de-vivienda","tag-impacto-de-los-subsidios","tag-intervencion-estatal-en-el-mercado","tag-mamdani-nueva-york","tag-nueva-york-politicas-economicas","tag-politicas-de-vivienda","tag-politicas-publicas-y-vivienda","tag-populismo-de-izquierda","tag-populismo-economico","tag-redistribucion-de-ingresos","tag-regulacion-de-precios","tag-vivienda-y-mercado-libre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexperu.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}