This brief examines how revenue management software, specifically RealPage's YieldStar, has enabled a form of algorithmic price coordination among corporate landlords that produces the effects of a cartel without any of the direct communication that antitrust law was built to detect.
The brief proposes a state-level fix: amending Rhode Island's Unfair Trade Practice and Consumer Protection Act to treat algorithmic pricing built on non-public competitor data as an unfair method of competition, sidestepping the federal evidentiary requirements that have left this practice largely unregulated. The analysis covers the legal framework, the economic effects on rental markets, and a detailed implementation path for state action.
Download the full policy brief on algorithmic rent-setting.