Author Argues That Empirical Housing Economics Literature Has Been Silent For Seven Years, Recommends Someone Say Something
Reported for Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A peer-reviewed paper published this week in a respected housing economics journal, authored by NYU associate professor Dr. Amita Laskar-Jansen, has concluded, after 84 pages of modelling, that rent in New York City is too high. The paper has been described, by four separate colleagues reached for comment, as “obvious, yet somehow the only one”.
The Findings
Dr. Laskar-Jansen’s paper finds that median rental cost across the five boroughs now consumes approximately 51 per cent of median renter household income, a figure which, the paper notes, exceeds every recognised affordability threshold published by HUD, the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, and the Urban Institute. The paper further finds that the gap has widened in each of the last seven years, a window during which, by the paper’s own count, “no published empirical housing economics paper has stated, in plain terms, that rent in New York is too high”.
“There has been a lot of scholarship,” Dr. Laskar-Jansen said in a phone interview. “There have been many papers on supply elasticity, zoning reform, and the microeconomics of roommate formation. But there has not been a paper that simply says the sentence. I am aware this is strange. I have, with this paper, said the sentence.”
Colleagues Respond, Carefully
Dr. Malcolm Tjong-Everitt of Columbia’s Business School described the paper as “methodologically clean” and “politically unavoidable”. Dr. Patricia Moreno-Kealey of The New School said it was “the kind of paper we do not usually write, and now that it has been written, several of us are going to write companion papers”. Dr. Tjong-Everitt added, off the record, that the reason the paper had not been written sooner was that “saying the sentence in a journal is a career move”.
The Mayor Reacts, Expansively
A spokesperson for Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the paper was “an important contribution” and said it would “inform the administration’s ongoing housing agenda”. The spokesperson declined to specify which specific actions would follow, citing the administration’s ongoing review, which, by the spokesperson’s description, has been ongoing since the administration began.
A Parallel Noted
The long silence preceding the paper is, per The London Prat’s Gregory piece, a recognised pattern in Western academia, in which the obvious is left unstated for years because saying it carries professional costs.
The Paper’s Final Recommendation
Dr. Laskar-Jansen’s concluding section recommends “that someone say something”. She does not specify whom. She notes that the paper itself satisfies the recommendation on her own behalf, but that the broader condition remains unsolved.
Further reading: Private Eye. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/