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Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE FINANCIALIZATION OF HOUSING IN SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE
Relations of dependency in Europe
The variegated financialization of housing
Households and the debt burden

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN HOUSEHOLD LENDING: TRAJECTORIES OF THE EUROPEAN PERIPHERY
The drivers of the pre-crisis debt boom
The effects of the 2008 financial and economic crisis
Managing the post-crisis era: cleaning toxic portfolios for a new loan cycle

BEYOND MORTGAGES: VARIOUS FORMS OF NON-MORTGAGE DEBT
Growth of consumer loans and personal loans
The stigmatization of consumer loans among the poor
Arrears on utility bills and the growing energy divide
Informal moneylending on the periphery of society

THE IMPLICATIONS OF DEBT FOR HOUSING
Debt as a form of accumulation by dispossession
Moral imaginaries of homeownership and debt

FORMS OF INTERVENTION AND POLITICAL DEMANDS RELATING TO HOUSEHOLD DEBT
Various interests relating to debt
How to intervene as engaged researchers - shaping the narrative
Building structures that point towards a different housing system
Examples of movements against debt and an outlook on 2020

REFERENCES AND WORKSHOP PROGRAM

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Introduction

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In the publication, we cover all different kinds of household debt: housing loans (mortgages), non-housing loans (consumer loans), utility and service bill arrears, and indebtedness through informal sources of loans as well. We discuss how debt is accumulated, what effect this has on households, as well as the institutional changes of the past decade concerning the debt of households on European peripheries. We also give short summaries of the presentations discussed at the workshop in Budapest at the end of November 2019. These appear in text boxes in the chapters.

We believe it is important to discuss the debt of households for various reasons. On the one hand, household debt plays a crucial role in the contemporary capitalist economy, and on the other hand, it also has severe consequences on households' livelihood, employment possibilities, residential mobility, and on processes of impoverishment. Debt acts in many cases as the interface between financial markets and households, hence it is crucial to understand how the logic of finance trickles down to the level of households. Despite its relevance, debt often remains an invisible problem, pushed to the realms of individual responsibility. Following this approach leads to the neglect of structural aspects behind the accumulation of debt: namely the fact that the increasing financialization of the economy, the devaluation of labor and the failure of the state to provide basic services has been a combination that left few other options available to low-income households than to indebt themselves. Increasingly complicated financial instruments, like foreign currency-denominated or indexed mortgages, were also used to shift new kinds of risk from financial institutions and the state onto households asked to "cope." Recognizing these structural constraints is important in shifting the discourse around debt away from a narrative of "blaming the poor". This is an objective that we as critically engaged social scientists put forward in this publication.

In the first section, we give reflections on the broader economic context of household debt, then in the second section, we outline institutional and regulatory frameworks related to household lending in place before and after the 2008 crisis. In the third section, we discuss different forms of non-mortgage debt, and in the fourth, we analyze what consequences indebtedness has in terms of housing possibilities: both from a structural and from an individual point of view. Finally, in the fifth section, we discuss the potential political responses.

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