Moving costs, security of tenure and eviction

Abstract

We contrast equilibrium and welfare analysis in the rental housing market under two property rights regimes – eviction rights and security of tenure – when tenants face moving costs. A tenant’s idiosyncratic benefit from his unit and a landlord’s idiosyncratic profit from conversion are treated as private information. The two regimes differ when a tenant wants to stay in his unit but the landlord wants to redevelop it. North American housing markets have been characterized by eviction rights and many European housing markets by security of tenure. Under eviction rights, a landlord who evicts a tenant imposes a negative externality on him, which can be imperfectly internalized through a demolition (conversion) tax. Similarly, under security of tenure efficiency can be improved by subsidizing the moving costs of tenants.Moving costs, eviction, tenure security, rental housing markets