A common argument against Airbnb and similar home-sharing companies is that they raise rents, because every apartment used for short-term rentals could be used for long-term rentals. A recent paper by a Spanish Ph.D. candidate suggests otherwise.
The paper focused on Santa Monica, California where, in 2015, the city adopted an ordinance restricting home-sharing. This city’s ordinance was successful in reducing Airbnb listings- especially listings of complete apartments, which cities are most likely to regulate (as opposed to spare rooms in a residence used by an Airbnb host).
If the anti-home sharing argument was valid, rents should have gone down. Instead, rents rose in Santa Monica by the same amount as they rose in other Los Angeles suburbs that do not regulate home-sharing to the same extent.