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Paper short abstract

Based on a case of rental ban of dwellings with low energy performance in France, this paper investigates a public policy of reconfiguring values and goods in housing markets. It shows the importance, for the value economy, to account for the entanglement of goods in multiple market agencements.

Paper long abstract

Is value destruction a legitimate and suitable means of government to achieve environmental objectives in contemporary market society? This is the unanticipated question that appeared in the public conversation in France in 2023 as a public policy rental ban of the most energy inefficient dwellings entered into force. Intended to spur retrofitting of low quality housing and overcome the 'landowner-tenant' dilemma, the regulation turned out to remove dwellings from the rental market, increase the housing crisis and drive down prices of these dwellings in the property market. The paper adopts the pragmatist empirical approach of ‘valuation studies’ with a case on ‘making good’ in the economy by getting rid of the ‘bads’. It shows how a valuation scale of energy and carbon performance, namely the energy label for building, was designed with a built-in concern for appraising both the ’good dwellings’ (the top of the scale) and the ‘bad ones’ (the bottom of the scale). It then describes how the scale and the rental ban on which it is indexed has played out in practice. Economics ’bads’ that could have been restored into goods through renovation spilled out on the capital value of properties. They turned out being moveable assets rather than ecologizeable dwellings. Highlighting how housing can be alternatively qualified as a good, a bad or an asset, this paper contributes to the theoretical inquiry on the value economy by suggesting that the entanglement of goods in multiple market agencements is key to its operation.