This has been long in the making so I'm glad it is now out. So then, here it is, my take on the rent gap and rent regulation, thought through from the perspective of a highly regulated housing context. /End of thread

➡️ I argue that, in contrast to the classic rent gap, the unlawful rent gap is inherently unstable, as tenants can challenge high rents in court. This gives the legal system a central role in shaping unlawful rent gap dynamics 5/n

➡️ Drawing on unique data of more than 2900 court decisions against landlords, I provide a fine-grained analysis of its scale and geography ➡️ I examine which social groups are most affected, estimate the size of the gap, and calculate a spatially-differentiated risk index for future exploitation 4/n

➡️I situate the unlawful rent gap vis-a-vis the classic rent gap concept ➡️I specify the drivers of this rent gap form ➡️ I demonstrate the relevance of the concept through a case study of Vienna, Austria 3/n

I propose the concept of the unlawful rent gap to make sense of cases in which rent regulation exists, but landlords close rent gaps nonetheless. 2/n