Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16150
Authors: Tomaso Duso; Claus Michelsen; Maximilian Schaefer; Kevin Tran
Abstract: We exploit two policy interventions in Berlin, Germany, to causally identify the impact of Airbnb on rental markets. While the first intervention significantly reduced the number of high-availability Airbnb listings bookable for most of the year, the second intervention led to the exit of mostly occasional, low-availability listings. We find that the reduction in Airbnb supply has a much larger impact on rents and long-term rental supply for the first reform. This is consistent with more professional Airbnb hosts substituting back to the long-term rental market. Accordingly, we estimate that one additional nearby high-availability Airbnb listing crowds out 0.6 long-term rentals and, consequently, increases the asked square-meter rent by 1.8 percent on average. This marginal effect tends to be smaller in districts with a higher Airbnb density. However, these district experienced a larger slowdown in rent increases following the reform due to larger reductions in Airbnb supply.
Keywords: rents; housing market; short-term rental regulation; sharing economy; airbnb
JEL Codes: R21; R31; R52; Z30
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reduction in Airbnb supply (R31) | Impact on long-term rental markets (R21) |
| One additional high-availability Airbnb listing within 250 meters (R31) | Increase in average asked rent (R21) |
| One additional high-availability Airbnb listing (R31) | Reduction in long-term rental supply (R31) |
| First reform (Y20) | Reduction in professional short-term rentals (R38) |
| Second reform (H19) | Smaller impact on rents and long-term supply (R21) |