Rent Control in Stockholm
斯德哥尔摩的租房管制

Here’s an interesting letter from “Stockholm” to Seattle:

这儿有封“斯德哥尔摩”写给西雅图的信,很有意思:

Dear Seattle,

亲爱的西雅图:

I am writing to you because I heard that you are looking at rent control.

听说你正在着手租房管制,特此来信。

Seattle, you need to ask your citizens this: How would citizens like it if they walked into a rental agency and the agent told them to register and come back in 10 years?

西雅图,你该问问你的市民们:如果他们走进一个租房中介却被告知十年后再来登记,他们将作何感受?

I’m not joking. The image above is a scan of a booklet sent to a rental applicant by Stockholm City Council’s rental housing service. See those numbers on the map? That’s the waiting time for an apartment in years. Yes, years. Look at the inner city – people are waiting for 10-20 years to get a rental apartment, and around 7-8 years in my suburbs. (Red keys = new apartments, green keys = existing apartments).

我可没开玩笑啊。上图是一张斯德哥尔摩市议会派发给租房申请人的宣传册扫描件。看见地图上那些数字了吗?那是租一间公寓所需等待的年数,没错,是年数。看看市中心,人们需要等上个一二十年才能租到一间公寓,而在郊区也要七八年的时间。(图中红钥匙指新公寓,绿钥匙指现有公寓。)

Stockholm City Council now has an official housing queue, where 1 day waiting = 1 point. To get an apartment you need both money for the rent and enough points to be the first in line. Recently an apartment in inner Stockholm became available. In just 5 days, 2000 people had applied for the apartment. The person who got the apartment had been waiting in the official housing queue since 1989!

斯德哥尔摩市政府目前有个官方住房队列,在这个队列中耗上一天就赚得一个“租房点”。为了租到一间公寓,你既要准备好租金,还要赚足“租房点”才能熬到队伍前头。最近有处位于斯德哥尔摩市中心的公寓开放租赁了。仅在5天之内,有多达2000人前来申请。最终租到这间房的那个人,可是早在1989年就已经在官方住房队列里候着了!

(上图红字:近两千人仅为一间房而苦苦守候!)

In addition to Soviet-level shortages, the letter writer discusses a number of other effects of rent controls in Stockholm including rental units converted to condominiums and a division of renters into original recipients who are guaranteed low rates and who thus never move and the newly arrived who have to sublet at higher rates or share crowded space. All of these, of course, are classic consequences of rent controls.

除了这种“苏联式短缺”之外,上述致函者还讨论了斯德哥尔摩的租房管制所造成的其他影响,包括:出租单元被转变成了公寓楼,还有将租客们分成先来的原始租客和后到的转租客这一效果,前者因为有着安享低房租的保证,因而绝不会自动搬走,而后者却不得不以更高的租价从这些二房东那里转租,或是选择与他们合租而忍受拥挤。上述一切,自然都是租房管制所造成的典型后果。

Addendum: More details on Sweden’s rent-setting system can be found here, statistics (in Swedish) on rental availability in Stockhom are here and a useful analysis of the Swedish housing crisis with more details on various policies (e.g. new construction is exempt for 15 years but there isn’t nearly enough) is here.

附录:欲了解有关瑞典的租金厘定体系的更多细节,请点击这里,有关斯德哥尔摩可租房屋的统计数据(瑞典语)请点击这里,一份关于瑞典住房危机的有用分析,其中含有有关诸多政策的细节(比如:新修建筑获免税已有15年,而建筑却仍供不应求【编注:此句意思不确定,exempt不知所指为何:exempt from what?】)请点击这里。

Jenkins wrote a comprehensive review of the literature on rent controls in 2009 that echoed what Navarro said in 1985 “the economics profession has reached a rare consensus: Rent control creates many more problems than it solves.”

Jenkins在2009年写过一篇有关租房管制的文献综述,与Navarro早在1985年时所言不谋而合:“经济学界难得达成了一个共识:租房管制无异于饮鸩止渴。”

Hat tip to Bjorn and Niclas who confirmed to me the situation in Stockholm and to Peter for the original link.

特别感谢Bjorn和Niclas,他们向我证实了斯德哥尔摩的实际情况;另外也要感谢Peter,是他为我提供了原始链接。

翻译:Marcel ZHANG(@马赫塞勒张)
校对:史祥莆(@史祥莆)
编辑:辉格@whigzhou

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