The role of regulation in the private rented sector: a comparative study

This paper provides an update to the presentation made last year at the Toulouse conference. A study of eleven European countries has examined the relationship between the type and strength of regulation in the private rented sector over the last thirty years on the one hand and the scale – and changes in that scale - on the other. The results show that there is no straightforward relationship and that both strengthening regulation and deregulation may be associated with growth and decline in the sector. The paper starts by questioning the benefits of summary measures of regulation and then develops a broader based typology for describing different forms and degrees of regulatory constraint. This allows us to look both over time within a country and between countries at how regulation has changed over the period. Interesting questions arise about the rationale for regulatory change – which is by no means always in the same direction. The second part of the paper concentrates on how the size of the private rented sector has changed across countries and the extent to which this is associated not only with regulatory change but with a range of other policy and market factors as well as differences in speed of adjustment. The paper concludes by asking what lessons can be learned about the relationship between different forms of regulation and the maintenance of well operating private rented sectors in different housing market contexts.