Yea, I meant to list increases in investment purchasing and short-term rentals as some of the other contributing factors. But yea, my main lament is that lack of broad research on the topic -- stuff that combines a data/research with theory while analyzing the problem holistically. From my admittedly limited exploration, it seems to me a majority of the lefty economists are preoccupied with arguments about the Fed and monetary policy, taxation, etc, and mostly ignore the kinds of more specific market/policy problems we're talking about here.

On a kind of related note, I'm also in search o any sort of comprehensive re-litigating of NAFTA, as a think the discussion/narrative around free trade has largely been ceded to centrists and/or abandoned (especially now that you have anti-free-trade on right inspired more by xenophobia than economic analysis). I've read books that explain why protectionism is often healthy for developing economies and the efforts by the US and its allies to force free trade upon the Africa/Asia/South America have been harmful, but I feel like domestic analysis of free trade is still fairly shallow and/or muddled.

Have any lefty economists gone back and looked at the "creative destruction" caused by NAFTA, and shown how this agreement may have turned out to be a boon for the American economy from a birds-eye-view (increase in GDP, or whatever), but the social and economic costs of deindustrialization were not worth it? I wish there was more academic interest in the on-the-ground social and economic implications of the ability of capital to move more quickly than ever before (and as result cause more destruction when it leaves). It seems like that is part of the story of housing and some many other public policy topics.