TY  - BOOK
AU  - Miceli, Thomas J.
AU  - Sirmans, C.F.
TI  - Efficiency rents: A new theory of the natural vacancy rate for rental housing
PY  - 2013///
PB  - Journal of Housing Economics
KW  - Private Rental
N1  - KEYWORDS: Rent, vacancy rates
N2  - This paper adapts the theory of efficiency wages to explain the natural vacancy rate in rental housing markets. A positive vacancy rate provides landlords an incentive to invest in
maintenance because if they fail to do so, some tenants will leave and the unit will sit vacant for a finite period of time. The resulting foregone rent will penalize landlords’ failure
to maintain. Habitability laws, which have been enacted by states since the 1960s, provide a non-market penalty which lessens the need for market enforcement. Variation in these
laws by state offers an opportunity to test the theory
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2013.01.002
ER  -