Alex Marsella

PhD in Economics @WestVirginiaU.

Assistant Professor of Economics and Data Analytics @berrycollege.

I do urban economics and public policy research.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

4/ What happened to rents?

Despite the sharp contraction in short-term rentals, I find little evidence of a meaningful citywide rent decline after enforcement. More exposed neighborhoods saw modest short-run declines, but they did not persist. Within city results are also null.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

New working paper: Did New York City’s Airbnb Ban Lower Rents? Evidence from Local Law 18

NYC sharply restricted short-term rentals. Did those units return to the long-term rental market and lower rents?

I find little evidence that they did.

https://t.co/G1rL3Mxx99

🧵

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

3/ Did those disappearing short-term rentals show up in the conventional rental market?

More exposed neighborhoods saw inventory rise after enactment. But when enforcement began and Airbnb listings sharply contracted, I find no additional increase in rental inventory

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@EFStephenson2 thanks for sharing, Frank!

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@scottlincicome thanks for sharing!

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@DastDn I am less worried after reading the article. It looks like they're taking issue with the fact that they used standard flu shots for the control group in seniors when apparently seniors usually get a high-dose flu shot. It doesn't seem politically motivated.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@besttrousers @AJA_Cortes @besttrousers never misses

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@rsrindy @DavidBahnsen imports are subtracted in that part of the equation because they are added as C, I, or G. Imports have a net zero effect on GDP calculation, as GDP is the sum of domestic production, not the sum of domestic production minus imports.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@eyalroz @franciscome @KirkegaardEmil What you are missing is that that is incorrect. Non-correlation does not mean non-causation. https://t.co/7zziugRXoh

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@KirkegaardEmil Have you considered potential confounders? How can you make any kind of causal claim from a scatterplot of cross-sectional data?

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@KirkegaardEmil @TOfnuggets20122 How would you know? All you have is a singular cross-section!

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@jmhorp It's a shame that his framing is "progressives use this to sell socialism" when for the past four years it has often been the MAGA crowd pushing these economic grievances.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@jmhorp $10 in foregone net gain from seeing Dylan is your opportunity cost of seeing Clapton.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@jmhorp Declining marginal benefit of additional units of its consumption and increasing marginal cost of additional units of production.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@PhilWMagness @timstarr2001 Alright, I will try to write a paper on this and get back to you in a year. 🤠

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@PhilWMagness But that is a further argument for allowing market mechanisms to allocate space. Make people pay for the street parking so it doesn't go to low-valued uses. Use congestion pricing. Let people pay for the costs they impose by taking up space with cars.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@PhilWMagness @timstarr2001 Apparently a number of these reforms have, in fact, made Houston denser and replaced sprawling development with building inward and upward https://t.co/wGtvkYwHp1

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@PhilWMagness @timstarr2001 Houston has significantly reformed a lot of these policies in the past decade. It would be more informative for us to look at their history over time. I know that, for example, Houston had 5000sqft minimum lot sizes for townhomes that they reduced to 1300 or so in 2013.

[Alex Marsella @EconMarsella]

@PhilWMagness In the suburbs where space is already abundant, sure, but a regulatory environment that *favors* car dependence and low-density artificially shifts demand curves. It distorts the rent gradient over that land. This is disastrous policy for cities.