Varieties of Residential Capitalism in the International Political Economy: Old Welfare States and the New Politics of Housing

Abstract

Comparative and international political economy (CPE and IPE) are justifiably obsessed with finance as a source of power and as a key causal force for domestic and international economic and political outcomes. Yet both CPE and IPE ignore the single largest asset in people’s everyday lives and one of the biggest financial assets in most economies: residential property and its associated mortgage debt. This volume argues that residential housing and housing finance systems have important causal consequences for political behavior, social stability, the structure of welfare states, and macroeconomic outcomes. Put bluntly, home equity and social equity are often at odds. The individual country chapters and paired country comparisons show specific instances of these outcomes, while Chapter 9 considers the origins and responses to the 2007–08 crises. This introductory chapter has broader aims.