This paper is concerned with the development of housing finance in peripheral European states. Interestingly, the biggest mortgage and housing booms and busts prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) have occurred in these countries, rather than in the core. This is surprising, given the comparatively low level of mortgage debt and the unsophisticated financial sectors in the periphery. The mortgage and housing booms and busts have also made these countries highly vulnerable to the fallout from the GFC, and have often been associated with severe banking and even sovereign debt crises. The paper asks why peripheral countries have been particularly vulnerable to housing and mortgage booms and busts; how these have shaped their exposure to the GFC, and how the GFC has affected peripheral housing finance. Building on literature on housing financialization and varieties of residential capitalism, the paper traces trajectories of housing-induced financialization before and after the GFC in four European peripheral countries: Hungary, Latvia, Ireland and Iceland. The paper argues that their differences notwithstanding, Europe's East and peripheral Northwest have been characterized by high homeownership rates and unsophisticated mortgage markets. The evolving EU framework for free movement of capital and provision of financial services as well as the availability of ample and cheap credit has induced a trajectory of financialization, which has taken two major but not mutually exclusive forms: domestic financial institutions' reliance on funding from wholesale markets, and direct penetration of foreign financial institutions. These two forms of financialization attest to a core-periphery relationship in the recent episode of housing financialization, whose hierarchical character played out in the crisis. Peripheral European countries experienced sudden stops and reversals of capital flows, which badly affected their banking systems. Unable to solve the looming banking crises on their own, they had to turn to creditors to gain access to much needed capital inflows. Different combinations of international conditionality, domestic policy responses and the original level of mortgage debt result in different trajectories in housing finance after the crisis.

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future. Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations. Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become. In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions. They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004. Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist. The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare. The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy. Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion. Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

In many European countries, the process of financialisation has been exacerbated by the project of closer EU integration and accelerated as a result of austerity policies introduced after the Euro crisis of 2010–2012. However, the impact has been felt differently in core and peripheral countries. This book examines the case of Portugal, and in particular the impact on its economy, work and social reproduction. The book examines the recent evolution of the Portuguese economy, of particular sectors and systems of social provision (including finance, housing and water), labour relations and income distribution. In doing so, it offers a comprehensive critical analysis of varied aspects of capital accumulation and social reproduction in the country, which are crucial to understand the effects of the official ‘bail-out’ of 2011 and associated austerity adjustment program. The book shows how these have increasingly relied on deteriorating pay and working conditions and households’ direct and indirect engagement with the global financial system in new domains of social reproduction. Through its exploration of the Portuguese case, the book presents a general theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of financialisation processes in peripheral countries. This text is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, development, geography, international relations and sociology with an interest in examining the uneven mechanisms and impacts of global finance.

In many European countries, the process of financialisation has been exacerbated by the project of closer EU integration and accelerated as a result of austerity policies introduced after the Euro crisis of 2010–2012. However, the impact has been felt differently in core and peripheral countries. This book examines the case of Portugal, and in particular the impact on its economy, work and social reproduction. The book examines the recent evolution of the Portuguese economy, of particular sectors and systems of social provision (including finance, housing and water), labour relations and income distribution. In doing so, it offers a comprehensive critical analysis of varied aspects of capital accumulation and social reproduction in the country, which are crucial to understand the effects of the official ‘bail-out’ of 2011 and associated austerity adjustment program. The book shows how these have increasingly relied on deteriorating pay and working conditions and households’ direct and indirect engagement with the global financial system in new domains of social reproduction. Through its exploration of the Portuguese case, the book presents a general theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of financialisation processes in peripheral countries. This text is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, development, geography, international relations and sociology with an interest in examining the uneven mechanisms and impacts of global finance.

Double-dip or prolonged recessions have far-reaching consequences on household debt, often distinct from an ordinary brief single-dip recession. Firstly, after the exhaustion of households' asset buffers during the first-dip recession, and when unemployment hits more mortgage-exposed parts of the population, the second-dip recession can trigger a second and potentially more important wave of non-performing loans. Secondly, household debt reduction weighs significantly on the aggregate demand and triggers a vicious debt-deflation cycle, further deepening the recession and preventing households from reducing their debt levels to more sustainable levels. Effective and swift solutions are technically and politically difficult to introduce due to the current institutional and political context, but they are vital in order to achieve sustainable household credit markets in Europe's periphery and beyond.

Households and Financialization in Europe develops a processual, relational and critical transdisciplinary approach to household financialization in Europe, utilizing a range of national and local case studies. It does so by drawing on debates in Marxist, feminist and radical IPE, anthropology and other fields. The book explores the household as simultaneously a micro-level social institution specializing in social reproduction, distribution and other activities; a building bloc of larger economic and social structures; and an object of multiple systems of power/knowledge. Putting this conceptualization to use in original research, the authors identify geographically and historically situated ways in which financialization transforms households and their relationships with the wider economy and society. The book traces these transformations in case studies of variegated financialization in Eastern and Southern European (semi-) peripheries where households have faced particularly severe financial issues since the global financial crisis, such as over-indebtedness and asset devaluation. Key themes recurring throughout the book include: the key role of housing in household financialization, the co-constitutive relationship between financialization and social and spatial inequalities, specific patterns in the relations of financial actors and households in semi-peripheries, and the implications of semi-peripheral forms of real and financial accumulation for household financialization. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of finance, financialization, household economics, international and global political economy, uneven development, economic anthropology, and economic sociology. The Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0 license.

Households and Financialization in Europe develops a processual, relational and critical transdisciplinary approach to household financialization in Europe, utilizing a range of national and local case studies. It does so by drawing on debates in Marxist, feminist and radical IPE, anthropology and other fields. The book explores the household as simultaneously a micro-level social institution specializing in social reproduction, distribution and other activities; a building bloc of larger economic and social structures; and an object of multiple systems of power/knowledge. Putting this conceptualization to use in original research, the authors identify geographically and historically situated ways in which financialization transforms households and their relationships with the wider economy and society. The book traces these transformations in case studies of variegated financialization in Eastern and Southern European (semi-) peripheries where households have faced particularly severe financial issues since the global financial crisis, such as over-indebtedness and asset devaluation. Key themes recurring throughout the book include: the key role of housing in household financialization, the co-constitutive relationship between financialization and social and spatial inequalities, specific patterns in the relations of financial actors and households in semi-peripheries, and the implications of semi-peripheral forms of real and financial accumulation for household financialization. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of finance, financialization, household economics, international and global political economy, uneven development, economic anthropology, and economic sociology. The Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0 license.