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。

Because of low fixed rents in old buildings, the tenants already in them, and legally protected against rent increases, are encouraged to use space wastefully, whether or not their families have grown smaller. This concentrates the immediate pressure of new demand on the relatively few new buildings. It tends to force rents in them, at the beginning, to a higher level than they would have reached in a wholly free market.

由于老房子的固定低房租，已经住在里面的租户合法地受到限制租金提高这一政策的保护。这等于鼓励他们浪费性地使用空间，而不考虑他们的家庭是否已经变小。如此一来，新需求迫在眉睫的压力都集中到了数量相对较少的新建筑上，并从一开始就迫使新房屋的租金高于完全自由的市场中应有的价位。

Nevertheless, this will not correspondingly encourage the construction of new housing. Builders or owners of preexisting apartment houses, finding themselves with restricted profits or perhaps even losses on their old apartments, will have little or no capital to put into new construction. In addition, they, or those with capital from other sources, may fear that the government may at any time find an excuse for imposing rent controls even on the new buildings. And it often does.

尽管如此，这种做法并不能相应地激励新住宅的建设。原有的的建筑商或业主发现，从旧房屋上他们只能得到极为有限的利润，甚至处于亏损。他们不会有多少资金，甚至可能拿不出资金去投入新的建设。此外，他们或其他具有资金来源的人们有钱也不敢投，因为担心政府随时另找借口，突然对新房屋实施房租管制。这样的事常有发生。

The housing situation will deteriorate in other ways. Most important, unless the appropriate rent increases are allowed, landlords will not trouble to remodel apartments or make other improvements in them. In fact, where rent control is particularly unrealistic or oppressive, landlords will not even keep rented houses or apartments in tolerable repair. Not only will they have no economic incentive to do so; they may not even have the funds. The rent-control laws, among their other effects, create ill feeling between landlords who are forced to take minimum returns or even losses, and tenants who resent the landlord’s failure to make adequate repairs.

住房状况的恶化也可能会表现在其他方面。最重要的是，除非政府允许适当地提高租金，否则业主不会自找麻烦修缮公寓或做其他方面的改善。事实上，在房租管制与现实严重脱节，价位打压过猛的情况下，房东甚至不会对租出去的院宅或公寓给予必要的维修。他们不仅没有经济动力，甚至没有足够资金去维修。房租管制法令也造成房东与房客之间关系恶化：房东被迫接受最低的回报率、甚至不赚反赔，租户则抱怨房东连起码的维修都不管。

A common next step of legislatures, acting under merely political pressures or confused economic ideas, is to take rent controls off “luxury” apartments while keeping them on low or middle-grade apartments. The argument is that the rich tenants can afford to pay higher rents, but the poor cannot.

迫于压力或由于混乱不清的经济思想，下一个步骤通常是取消“高档”住宅的房租管制，而同时继续维持中低档住宅的房租管制。其论点是：富人负担得起较高的房租，而穷人负担不起。

The long-run effect of this discriminatory device, however, is the exact opposite of what its advocates intend. The builders and owners of luxury apartments are encouraged and rewarded; the builders and owners of the more needed low-rent housing are discouraged and penalized. The former are free to make as big a profit as the conditions of supply and demand warrant; the latter are left with no incentive (or even capital) to build more low-rent housing.

然而，这种区别对待政策的长期影响与其预期恰恰相反。高档住宅的建筑商和业主得到鼓励和更好回报；而需求更为迫切的低租金房屋，其建筑商和业主反而受到限制和惩罚。前者可以自由地赚取供需状况所允许的最大利润；后者则缺乏激励（甚至缺乏资金）去建造更多的低租金房屋。

The result is a comparative encouragement to the repair and remodeling of luxury apartments, and a tendency for what new private building there is to be diverted to luxury apartments. But there is no incentive to build new low-income housing, or even to keep existing low-income housing in good repair. The accommodations for the low-income groups, therefore, will deteriorate in quality, and there will be no increase in quantity. Where the population is increasing, the deterioration and shortage in low-income housing will grow worse and worse. It may reach a point where many landlords not only cease to make any profit but are faced with mounting and compulsory losses. They may find that they cannot even give their property away. They may actually abandon their property and disappear, so they cannot be held liable for taxes. When owners cease supplying heat and other basic services, the tenants are compelled to abandon their apartments. Wider and wider neighborhoods are reduced to slums. In recent years, in New York City, it has become a common sight to see whole blocks of abandoned apartments, with windows broken, or boarded up to prevent further havoc by vandals. Arson becomes more frequent, and the owners are suspected.

上述做法相对鼓励了业主对高档住宅的维修和改造，致使新建私人建筑被迫转向高档公寓。然而，人们缺乏激励去建造新的低收入住宅，甚至缺乏激励去保障现有低收入住宅的修缮。因此，对于低收入群体来讲，其住房质量将会恶化，而且数量上也不会有什么增加。在人口增长的情况下，低收入住宅的恶化和短缺都将会愈演愈烈。甚至严重到这样一种地步：那时，许多房东不仅赚不到钱，反而被迫月月赔钱。也许到了那时，他们甚至连放弃这笔财产也做不到。他们可能当真抛弃房产，溜之大吉，从而避免纳税。当住宅的供暖和其他的基本服务无人管理时，租户也只有另找住处。越来越多居民区沦为贫民窟。近年来，在纽约城区内，经常可见整段的街区都是废弃的公寓建筑，窗户破烂，或者用木板钉死以防遭人恣意毁坏。纵火案比以前增多，房主就有嫌疑。

A further effect is the erosion of city revenues, as the property-value base for such taxes continues to shrink. Cities go bankrupt, or cannot continue to supply basic services.

一个进一步影响是市政收入流失，这是由于以财产价值为税基的税收持续萎缩。市政面临破产，或是无法继续提供基本的服务。

When these consequences are so clear that they become glaring, there is of course no acknowledgment on the part of the imposers of rent control that they have blundered. Instead, they denounce the capitalist system. They contend that private enterprise has “failed” again; that “private enterprise cannot do the job.” Therefore, they argue, the State must step in and itself build low-rent housing.

当这些结果变得明朗并引起广泛关注时，那些实施管制的人自然不会承认他们犯有过错。正相反，他们怪罪到资本主义体制头上。他们争辩说，私有制度再度“失灵”，“私有产业解决不了问题”。因此，他们力陈，国家必须介入，一肩担起兴建廉租房的重任。

This has been the almost universal result in every country that was involved in World War II or imposed rent control in an effort to offset monetary inflation.

对于那些参与过二次世界大战的国家、以及那些为了平抑通货膨胀而实施房租管制的国家来说，这几乎是统一的结局。

So the government launches on a gigantic housing program — at the taxpayers’ expense. The houses are rented at a rate that does not pay back costs of construction and operation. A typical arrangement is for the government to pay annual subsidies, either directly to the tenants in lower rents or to the builders or managers of the State housing. Whatever the nominal arrangement, the tenants in the buildings are being subsidized by the rest of the population. They are having part of their rent paid for them. They are being selected for favored treatment. The political possibilities of this favoritism are too clear to need stressing. A pressure group is built up that believes that the taxpayers owe it these subsidies as a matter of right. Another all but irreversible step is taken toward the total Welfare State.

于是乎，政府推出规模浩大的廉租房兴建计划（当然是拿纳税人的钱去做这件事）。当然，廉租房的房租，根本不足以弥补房屋的建造和营运成本。不足部分通常由政府每年拿钱出来补贴，无论是通过收取低廉的房租来直接补贴租户，还是以各种名义补贴廉租房的承建商和物业公司。无论名义上如何安排和计划，享受廉租房的租户都得到了别人的补贴。他们所需交纳的一部分租金是由别人提供的。这些租户是被政府选中的接受优待的一群人。对于优待特定的一群人的各种政治可能性，明眼人一看即知，无需多说。一个压力集团将由此形成并壮大，进而相信它有权接受纳税人的补贴。这是向全面的福利国家迈进的另一个不可逆的步骤。

A final irony of rent control is that the more unrealistic, Draconian, and unjust it is, the more fervid the political arguments for its continuance. If the legally fixed rents are on the average 95 percent as high as free market rents would be, and only minor injustice is being done to landlords, there is no strong political objection to taking off rent controls, because tenants will only have to pay increases averaging about percent. But if the inflation of the currency has been so great, or the rent-control laws so repressive and unrealistic, that legally fixed rents are only 10 percent of what free market rents would be, and gross injustice is being done to owners and landlords, a great outcry will be raised about the dreadful evils of removing the controls and forcing tenants to pay an economic rent. The argument is made that it would be unspeakably cruel and unreasonable to ask the tenants to pay so sudden and huge an increase. Even the opponents of rent control are then disposed to concede that the removal of controls must be a very cautious, gradual, and prolonged process. Few of the opponents of rent control, indeed, have the political courage and economic insight under such conditions to ask even for this gradual decontrol. In sum, the more unrealistic and unjust the rent control is, the harder it is politically to get rid of it. In country after country, a ruinous rent control has been retained years after other forms of price control have been abandoned.

实施房租管制，最具讽刺的一点，在于它越是背离现实、手段越严厉、越不公正，支持继续管制的政治呼声越强烈。假如法定固定房租平均来说是自由市场租金水平的95%，并且对房东来讲只有些许不公平的话，政府此时取消房租管制，遇到的政治阻力不会太大，毕竟租户只需要多负担约5%的房租。但是，倘若通货膨胀非常严重，或者房租管制法十分严厉，总之跟现实大幅脱节，以至于法定固定房租只相当于自由市场租金的10%，巨大的不公平让业主和房东受损、让租户受益，政府此时取消房租管制、要租户转而支付高租金就会引起非常强烈的反对。反对者会说，突然加重租户房租负担，未免过于残酷和不合情理。鉴于这种情况，甚至反对实施房租管制的人也会妥协，认为取消管制必须慎重、渐进、慢慢来。实际上，就是连这种逐步取消管制的方案，在房租管制的人中，也极少有人怀有政治上的勇气和经济上的远见而敢于提倡。总之，房租管制越是不切实际、不公正，取消管制在政治上的可行性越小。一个接一个国家的实践表明，即使其他的价格管制形式已经取消了好多年，为害不小的房租管制依然照旧在实施。

The political excuses offered for continuing rent control pass credibility. The law sometimes provides that the controls may be lifted when the “vacancy rate” is above a certain figure. The officials retaining the rent control keep triumphantly pointing out that the vacancy rate has not yet reached that figure. Of course not. The very fact that the legal rents are held so far below market rents artificially increases the demand for rental space at the same time as it discourages any increase in supply. So the more unreasonably low the rent ceilings are held, the more certain it is that the ‘‘scarcity” of rental houses or apartments will continue.

继续实施房租管制的政治借口毫无道理可言。法律有时规定，当“空房率”高于某个数字时，可以解除控制。执行房租管制的官员总是提醒公众，空房率还没有达到那个数字。这当然是不会达到的。法定房租至今一直被控制在远远低于市场价格的水平，这足以使阻碍出租房屋供给的增长，另一方面又人为地增加了对它的需求。因此，政府所规定的租价上限越是低得不合理，出租房源的“稀缺”情况将持续下去就越必然。

The injustice imposed on landlords is flagrant. They are, to repeat, forced to subsidize the rents paid by their tenants, often at the cost of great net losses to themselves. The subsidized tenants may frequently be richer than the landlord forced to assume part of what would otherwise be his market rent. The politicians ignore this. Men in other businesses, who support the imposition or retention of rent control because their hearts bleed for the tenants, do not go so far as to suggest that they themselves be asked to assume part of the tenant subsidy through taxation. The whole burden falls on the single small class of people wicked enough to have built or to own rental housing.

强加于房东们的不公正待遇是公然的恶行。大家不要忘了，他们被强制补贴租户的租金的，为此他们往往要自己承担很大的净亏损。享受补贴的租户，也许会比补贴他们的房东还富有，因为后者不得不承担市场租价中的部分份额。政治家们忽视了这一点，而其他行业的人有可能因为同情租户的处境而支持实施或者维持房租管制，但他们绝不会自找麻烦，建议通过纳税而自己也向租户提供部分的补贴。全部的负担落到非常倒霉的一小群建设或拥有出租房屋的家伙身上。

Few words carry stronger obloquy than slumlord. And what is a slumlord? He is not a man who owns expensive property in fashionable neighborhoods, but one who owns only rundown property in the slums, where the rents are lowest and where payment is most dilatory, erratic and undependable. It is not easy to imagine why (except for natural wickedness) a man who could afford to own decent rental housing would decide to become a slumlord instead.

甚少有比贫民窟恶房东更具有贬义的词汇了。贫民窟恶房东是什么样的人呢？他并不拥有坐落在黄金地段的豪宅，而是只有位于贫民窟的破旧老屋。那里的房租是最便宜的，而租金的支付又是最拖拉、最不稳定、最靠不住的。很难想象一个人（除非天性邪恶）具有相当的经济条件，可以拥有像样的房屋出租的话，相反他选择了去作一个贫民窟恶房东。

When unreasonable price controls are placed on articles of immediate consumption, like bread, for example, the bakers can simply refuse to continue to bake and sell it. A shortage becomes immediately obvious, and the politicians are compelled to raise the ceilings or repeal them. But housing is very durable. It may take several years before tenants begin to feel the results of the discouragement to new building, and to ordinary maintenance and repair. It may take even longer before they realize that the scarcity and deterioration of housing is directly traceable to rent control. Meanwhile, as long as landlords are getting any net income whatever above their taxes and mortgage interest, they seem to have no alternative but to continue holding and renting their property. The politicians—remembering that tenants have more votes than landlords—cynically continue their rent control long after they have been forced to give up general price controls.

不合理的价格管制施加在面包等日用消费品上的时候，比如面包，面包店只要停止烘焙、停止出售面包就行了。面包马上就会供不应求，迫使政治人物提高价格上限，甚至取消价格管制。但是，房子是非常耐用的消费品。可能要住上好几年，寻租户才会开始感受到房东无力维修与扩建的苦果。也许再过数年，人们才会意识到房荒与房屋设施恶化与房租管制有直接的关系。与此同时，只要房主们在扣除税金和抵押贷款利息之后还算有点净收入，那么，除了继续拥有和出租房产，他们似乎也别无选择。于是，政治家们——记住，租户的票数比房东的票数更多——在被迫放普通价格管制之后，仍然长久地继续执行房租管制政策。

So we come back to our basic lesson. The pressure for rent control comes from those who consider only its imagined short-run benefits to one group in the population. But when we consider its long-ran effects on everybody, including the tenants themselves, we recognize that rent control is not only increasingly futile, but increasingly destructive the more severe it is, and the longer it remains in effect.

这就回到了我们的基本课程。要求实施房租管制的压力，来自于仅仅考虑了臆想出来的全部人口中某一群体的短期利益。而当我们考虑到这种控制在长期内对于包括租户自己在内的每个人的影响时，我们就会认识到，不仅房租管制徒劳无益，并且，管制手段越严厉、延续时间越长，它的破坏性越大。