Rent+Control

Objectives:

 * Describe effects of price ceilings.
 * Compare the benefits and disadvantages of rent control

Overview:
Imagine that you've just graduated from college and have been offered a position with a firm in New York City. You can't wait to start living in your own apartment. Your Aunt Bernice, who lives in Brooklyn Heights, has offered you a place to stay while you look for a place to begin living on your own.

Instructions:

 * 1) Open the document "Rent Control.doc"[[file:Rent Control.doc]]
 * 2) Read the "Lesson" below and visit each of the Web sites
 * 3) Answer the questions on "Rent Control.doc" based on the Lesson and on the Web sites below

Lesson
Imagine that you've just graduated from college and have been offered a position with a firm in New York City. You can't wait to start living in your own apartment. Your Aunt Bernice, who lives in Brooklyn Heights, has offered you a place to stay while you look for a place to begin living on your own. It's Sunday morning, and Aunt Bernice offers you the classified section of the Times. "Here!" she says. "This is the best place to start searching for an apartment." Your Aunt Bernice says you need to start looking early because there is a shortage of apartments in New York City. Hearing Aunt Bernice's good advice, you're reminded of the day your Economics teacher discussed price ceilings. Click here for a flashback to your Economics class. "You do use this stuff in real life," you think to yourself. You're curious about what residents in areas like New York and San Francisco think about rent control. Surely they understand the allocative inefficiencies of an arbitrarily applied price ceiling. In fact, any time price ceilings are set: utilities, football tickets, parking, etc. -- there's bound to be some allocative inefficiencies. You conduct a search on the Web, and identify a couple of sites. Here's a page from The Library of Economics and Liberty that summarizes the arguments for rent control: www.econlib.org/Library/Enc/RentControl.html This page summarizes arguments for and against rent control: www.cnn.com/US/9706/15/rent.control/