Housing Rent Dynamics and Rent Regulation in St. Petersburg (1880-1917)

47 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2019

See all articles by Konstantin A. Kholodilin

Konstantin A. Kholodilin

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Leonid Limonov

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Sofie R. Waltl

Vienna University of Economics and Business

Date Written: January 2019

Abstract

This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from a local newspaper, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world’s earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced in response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: while before the regulation rents were increasing at a similar rapid pace as other consumer prices, the policy reversed this trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability among workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the dominating problems.

Keywords: rental market, rent regulation, intra-urban rent dynamics, hedonic rent price index, economic history, Pre-Soviet Russia, October revolution

JEL Classification: C14, C43, N93, O18

Suggested Citation

Kholodilin, Konstantin A. and Limonov, Leonid and Waltl, Sofie R., Housing Rent Dynamics and Rent Regulation in St. Petersburg (1880-1917) (January 2019). DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1780 (2019), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3339165 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3339165

Konstantin A. Kholodilin (Contact Author)

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

Leonid Limonov

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Sofie R. Waltl

Vienna University of Economics and Business ( email )

Welthandelsplatz 1
Vienna, Wien 1020
Austria

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