Following World War I, rent control became a standard policy response to the housing shortage and the resulting rent increases. Typically, economists blame it for creating inefficiencies in the housing market and beyond. We investigate whether rental market regulations (including rent control, protection of tenants from eviction, and housing rationing) had any effects in a middle-income Latin American economy, such as Argentina. To answer this question, we take advantage of a wide range of housing market indicators and restrictive rental regulation indices covering almost one century. Using a standard OLS model and MARS, a nonlinear estimation technique, we find that rental market regulations have exerted a statistically significant negative impact on the growth rates of the real housing rents. However, they were only effective for short periods following both World Wars, when regulations were novel and particularly strong.

第一次世界大战后，租金管制成为应对住房短缺和由此导致的租金上涨的标准政策。通常，经济学家将其归咎于房地产市场及其他领域的低效率。我们调查租赁市场法规（包括租金控制、保护租户免遭驱逐和住房配给）是否对阿根廷等中等收入拉丁美洲经济体产生任何影响。为了回答这个问题，我们利用了范围广泛的住房市场指标和涵盖近一个世纪的限制性租金监管指数。使用标准 OLS 模型和非线性估计技术 MARS，我们发现租赁市场监管对实际住房租金的增长率产生了统计上显着的负面影响。然而，