In New York City, for instance, decades of rent controls have engendered a long-term deterioration of the residential market. In this market, a number of "rationing" anomalies may be observed. For instance, rent-controlled tenants may sublet their apartments at rents far exceeding both the legally controlled rents and the rents that would be paid in a normal market. Other buyers (that is, renters) who are excluded by shortages in rent-controlled districts are of course obliged to seek housing in noncontrolled areas. Not only are they thus ejected from the neighborhoods that they find most convenient or desirable, but the rents in the latter areas are driven to levels far in excess of those that would be expected in a free market.

In general, people unfamiliar with the principles of human action find price-ceiling proposals attractive because they mistakenly imagine that the targeted goods, which they regard as overpriced, will remain available in the same abundance as before. In many cases, the prices of the goods in question have been driven to levels far exceeding those of a free market by previous interventionist laws and regulations. For instance, in the current American economy, a number of regulations and policies (covered later in this subsection) have caused the prices of medical goods and services to escalate rapidly in recent decades. In order for such goods are to become widely available at affordable prices, the harmful policies underlying this problem must be addressed and corrected. The imposition of an additional regulatory layer of controls would only limit the supply of these critical items still further.

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