摘要：Reni Conlrol is an unabashed political tract, designed to generate political pressure against existing rent contrallegislation. There are fifteen chapters, four of which have appeared in print elsewhere and most of which pravide histories of rent contrais in other countries. The perspective is one-sided and single-minded, with the authors generally subscribing to a SIST (Single-Insidious-Source Theory) in this case, that difficulties in housing markets where there are rent controIs are due solely to rent controls. Many of the authors also explicitly subscribe to the more general SIST that any market breakdown is due to government interference: "Entrepreneurial unscrupulousness is a function of the degree of government control" (p. 300). The longest-running SIST is Friedman-Stigler's 1946 article comparing San Francisco's housing shortages in 1906, after the earthquake and fire, with 1946, after the war. They c1aim there was no shortage in 1906, when the market was allowed to function, and serious shortages in 1946, when contrais existed. They conveniently ignore other important factors which effectively supplanted the market in 1906. Had the market been the primary allocating mechanism in 1906, prices would have skyrocketed and incredible hardship been imposed. But the market was obviously replaced by a compassionate response, with people in the thousands sharing their houses with others. What this article shows is that a non-selfish general reaction can be an effective substitute for the market mechanism, not that the market mechanism works and a controlled market does not. Economics is too complex to be explained by a 51ST -even when touted by prominent economists.
