Varieties of indebtedness: Financialization and mortgage market institutions in Europe

Tod Van Gunten, Edo Navot

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

During the global housing boom that preceded the 2007–9 financial crisis, household debt increased substantially in many European countries, posing a challenge for literature on financialization and the institutional heterogeneity of mortgage markets. This paper examines recent institutional shifts in European mortgage markets and specifies three analytically distinct models of debt accumulation: inclusion, extension and intensity. While existing research has emphasized inclusion (access to homeownership), we show that financial intensification is an important determinant of cross-national variation in debt. We assess the variation in financial intensity in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using household-level survey data. Our results show that inclusion and expansion explain only part of the cross-national variation in mortgage debt to income ratios. Furthermore, household financial behaviour is consistent with the financial intensity model, and variation in the degree of financial intensification explains a substantial portion of the cross-national difference in debt levels.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)90-106
JournalSocial Science Research
Volume70
Early online date2 Dec 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2018

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Financialization
  • Institutions
  • Household debt

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