Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Several countries have recently implemented rental-market reforms to make delinquency eviction processes more expedient. These policies seek to cause an increase in rental supply by making it less costly to enforce contracts in which the tenant fails to pay their rent beyond the specified timetable. Long enforcement of contracts is allegedly one of the main reasons why landlords avoid renting their properties, seek higher income tenants, or request excessive personal documentation before committing to a lease. While supporters of these bills suggest they help increase rental supply, there are no current estimations of the association between ease-of-eviction regulation and the volume of rental units.

This paper explores the outcomes in rental markets in the metropolitan areas of several countries with different configurations of eviction policies. Using both aggregate country-level data and household survey data from OECD and OECD-accession countries, it is explored whether there is an association between eviction policies and rental volumes. This is achieved using a two pronged approach that combines first an empirical estimation strategy which measures the proportion of families renting their units, when accounting for both an ease-of-eviction index and household characteristics. Then, two case studies for Costa Rica and Chile are used to explore specific Latin American country-level intricacies.