CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | McLaughlan-Haggarty, Soryah Amber |
|---|---|
| Title | Financialization and Housing: The role of national institutions in mediating the global wall of money |
| Summary | The most important change in the housing market of most developed countries in the last two decades has been the increased importance of financial actors, markets and motives. Actors increasingly seek to make profit not through investment in the provision of housing but through investment in financial products connected to housing. However, this phenomenon, termed financialization, has not uniformly affected housing markets. Existing literature is not able to explain the different degrees of financialization across housing markets. This thesis uses comparative case study analysis, focusing on the Netherlands and Germany from the period prior to the rise of the global wall of money until just prior to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. It charts the impact of key institutions in preventing or facilitating financialization, in the face of similar degrees of exposure to the global wall of money. This thesis highlights the role played by owner-occupation in driving forward financialization. The institutional framework of a housing market determines where incentives lie for investors, which in turn determines whether investment will be in the provision of housing or in financial products connected to housing. Financialization occurs, it concludes, in housing markets where there are little alternatives to owner-occupation and the use of housing finance is explicitly encouraged by government institutions. Financialization is prevented when there are easily accessible and affordable alternatives to owner-occupation and the use of housing finance is restricted. |
| Supervisor | Kovacs, Borbala |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/mclaughlan_soryah.pdf |
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