Second-Generation Rent Control Ordinances

The existing literature classifies rent control measures into two groups: first generation (restrictive) and second generation (moderate). However, a perusal of the second generation ordinances reveals a tremendous degree of variation in terms of their restrictiveness. In recognition of this variation, this article builds an ordinal scale for evaluating these ordinances. Specifically, by using discriminant analysis, the relative importance of each rent control feature is quantified, and existing California ordinances are ranked in the order of restrictiveness as perceived by landlords. This discriminant model has wide applicability in evaluating existing and proposed rent control ordinances and contributes to an understanding of rent control by narrowing the level of subjectivity in their relative ranking.