Rent stabilization has limited long-run effects on housing affordability

Quality and quantity of direct evidence for or against the claim — RCTs, systematic reviews, natural experiments, large cohort studies.

Diamond, McQuade & Qian's San Francisco study and Autor, Palmer & Pathak's Cambridge decontrol study substantially support incumbent protection working while supply costs materialize.

Whether the proposed mechanism is valid and established — does the how make sense, or are there fundamental flaws in the causal logic?

The insurance-function-with-supply-cost mechanism is largely established, though moderate stabilization designs (inflation-indexed, new-construction exempt) show smaller costs than strict rent control specifically.

Degree of agreement among domain experts and relevant scientific or policy bodies — depth and quality of consensus, not just majority opinion.

Most housing economists agree on the tenant-protection/supply-cost tradeoff while debating the relative weight for different stabilization designs.

Whether findings hold across independent studies, populations, and contexts — resistance to p-hacking and publication bias.

The protection-works-supply-costs-real finding replicates in both the San Francisco and Cambridge natural experiments using different identification strategies.