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18. What Rent Control Does

第18章 房租管制的后果

Government control of the rents of houses and apartments is a special form of price control. Most of its consequences are substantially the same as those of price control in general, but a few call for special consideration.

政府对院宅和公寓房租的管制，是价格管制的一种特殊形式。从实质上讲其主要后果与一般的物价管制也是相同的，但仍有几点需要特别考虑。

Rent controls are sometimes imposed as a part of general price controls, but more often they are decreed by a special law. A frequent occasion is the beginning of a war. An army post is set up in a small town; rooming houses increase rents for rooms; owners of apartments and houses increase their rents. This leads to public indignation. Or houses in some towns may be actually destroyed by bombs, and the need for armaments or other supplies diverts materials and labor from the building trades.

有的时候，实行房租管制是整个物价管制政策的一个部分，但多数时候则是通过专门立法来规范的。这类情况往往出现在在战争初期。有的小镇因为部队驻扎，寄宿店主提高房价，公寓和院宅的业主提高租金，于是这导致了公众的愤慨。或者，在某些城镇，房屋事实上可能被炮弹炸毁了，而对武器或其他军需品的需求又挤占了建筑业所需的原材料和劳动力。

Rent control is initially imposed on the argument that the supply of housing is not “elastic”—i.e., that a housing shortage cannot be immediately made up, no matter how high rents are allowed to rise. Therefore, it is contended, the government, by forbidding increases in rents, protects tenants from extortion and exploitation without doing any real harm to landlords and without discouraging new construction.

房租管制最初是以房屋供应缺乏“弹性”为依据强制实施的——也就是说，无论租金被提高到怎样的水平，住房短缺都不可能得到立即弥补。因此，人们坚持认为，通过禁止提高房租，政府可以保护租户不被敲竹杠、不被盘剥，同时不会对业主造成实质的伤害，也不会打消建造新房屋的积极性。

This argument is defective even on the assumption that the rent control will not long remain in effect. It overlooks an immediate consequence. If landlords are allowed to raise rents to reflect a monetary inflation and the true conditions of supply and demand, individual tenants will economize by taking less space. This will allow others to share the accommodations that are in short supply. The same amount of housing will shelter more people, until the shortage is relieved.

即便我们假设不会长期实行房租管制，上述论调也有缺陷。它忽视了一个立即就会出现的后果。如果我们允许房东提高租金，以反映出通货膨胀和真实的供求状况的话，那么，各个租户将会节省租用面积以求经济合算。这样使得其他人可以分享供不应求的居住设施。相同数量的住房，就可以供更多的人居住，直到房荒得到缓解。

Rent control, however, encourages wasteful use of space. It discriminates in favor of those who already occupy houses or apartments in a particular city or region at the expense of those who find themselves on the outside. Permitting rents to rise to the free market level allows all tenants or would-be tenants equal opportunity to bid for space. Under conditions of monetary inflation or real housing shortage, rents would rise just as surely if landlords were not allowed to set an asking price, but were allowed merely to accept the highest competitive bids of tenants.

然而，房租管制鼓励了居住面积使用上的浪费。它造成一种差别待遇，其中，已经在某一城市或地区占有院宅或公寓的租户得到了特别的优待，却牺牲了四处找房的求租人的利益。只有允许租金上涨到自由市场的水平，才可能让所有的租户或求租人享有同等的机会，竞价争取居住空间。在通货膨胀或房源短缺的状况下，倘若不允许房东自己定个一口价，而只允许房东接受出价最高的人承租，那么租金毫无疑问也是会上涨的。

The effects of rent control become worse the longer the rent control continues. New housing is not built because there is no incentive to build it. With the increase in building costs (commonly as a result of inflation), the old level of rents will not yield a profit. If, as often happens, the government finally recognizes this and exempts new housing from rent control, there is still not an incentive to as much new building as if older buildings were also free of rent control. Depending on the extent of money depreciation since old rents were legally frozen, rents for new housing might be ten or twenty times as high as rent in equivalent space in the old. (This actually happened in France after World War II, for example.) Under such conditions existing tenants in old buildings are indisposed to move, no matter how much their families grow or their existing accommodations deteriorate.

房租管制持续的时间越长，其影响就越恶劣。新的房子不会盖出来，因为不存在盖新楼的经济激励。而随着住宅建造成本升高（通常是通货膨胀造成的），原来价位的房租不再能带来利润。正如现实中通常发生的那样，即使政府最后认识到了这一点，并且不把新房屋的租金纳入管制范围，对兴建新住宅的激励，以及建造数量，还是会少于完全不实施房租管制的情况。新房屋的租金可能是同等大小旧房屋的10~20倍不等，具体要看旧房屋租金的价位，以及旧房屋租金管制以来的货币贬值程度（这样的事情曾经发生在二次世界大战后的法国）。在这样的状况下，住在老房子中的租户，不管家庭人数增加多少，或者目前的房屋多么破旧，都不愿意搬迁。
（未完待续）

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