In: R. Kitchin and N. Thrift, eds., International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, vol. 1, pp. 116-121, 2009
This encyclopedia entry reviews debates about the so-called Anglo-American hegemony in human geog... more This encyclopedia entry reviews debates about the so-called Anglo-American hegemony in human geography as an academic field, particularly in its international journals and wider channels of academic production of hegemonic ideas and ways of conducting research.
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Papers by Manuel Aalbers
Full OPEN ACCESS paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2024.2337570
Key words: housing, political economy, ideal types, Max Weber, capitalist accumulation, varieties
financialization of housing:
1. The federal government should ask the question: it is fair to provide REITs with a tax advantage? Should it create a level-playing field where tax advantages are not selectively doled out to one set of actors?
2. Different levels of government should consider cooperating with not-for-profit, community, grassroots, and other affordable housing providers. They could also consider directly building or managing housing stock.
3. This one should be a no-brainer: governments should regulate rental housing markets better, starting with regulating rent price increases and outlawing no-fault evictions. Governments often fear that this will deter investors. But if investors are buying up existing housing stock with the main aim of increasing rents, deterring them would be a positive outcome for tenants and society at large. Existing landlords can continue to make a profit if rents follow inflation (or income/pension levels).
4. Local governments can use their zoning and land use powers to require inclusionary and affordable housing.
5. Finally, the government should limit monopolies when one landlord is dominant in one market segment, e.g. rental flats within a certain price range or units within a particular neighbourhood.
Keywords: urban tourism; touristification; gentrification; financialization; Airbnb; short-term rentals; land rent.
The financialization of housing has already become a major issue in urban and housing studies and research has disclosed the growing relevance of institutional investors, financial motives, financialised management and calculation techniques in the transformation of housing into an asset class (Gabor & Kohl 2022; Wu et al., 2020; Fernandez & Aalbers, 2020; Aalbers et al., 2020). However, after more than 15 years of interdisciplinary research it has become clear that the term "financialisation" is developing as a relatively imprecise umbrella for a broad variety of topics. We tender that the actual “doing” of financialization is highly context-bound, defined by spatial and temporal local particularities and, as such, subject to an immense array of variations. For example, while in Germany and Sweden institutional investors have been buying up entire housing estates and formerly public housing companies, in other cities of central and eastern Europe real estate investment trusts or real estate funds are gaining a foothold in niche markets such as care facilities, student dormitories or micro-apartments. In Spain and Ireland, and more recently, in Greece financialization is often discussed in relation to debt management and the securitization of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs). In our study, we explore these differences and describe the variety of ways in which institutional investors have established themselves in European cities.
The chief aim of our study is to shed light on the role and strategies of institutional investors in local housing markets. First, we trace how institutional investors approach local housing markets in seven different countries. Second, we explore how institutional investors' activities enmesh with the provision of affordable housing. Third, we reflect on the local specificities and the way institutional investors become embedded in local real-estate markets to consider why investment strategies differ significantly amongst cities and, therefore, we disclose the different gateways in the cities under study. In doing so, we highlight the role of local context in the path-dependency of the financialisation of housing. A fourth focus is on the interplay between institutional investors, policy actors and governments. We assume that in a highly regulated field such as urban and housing policy, different forms of exchange and cooperation between institutional investors and local policy actors emerge in each case, reflecting local specificites and dynamics.
To address the above, we have chosen a comparative case study design. Moving away from a conventional comparative approach of identifying similarities and differences, we aim at teasing out how the general restructuring of financialised housing is continuously restructured and reshaped by local dynamics. This helps disclose the path-dependency of housing finanicialisation across seven cities. In other words, it is not only the generic trend of housing financialisation that shapes local housing markets, but local circumstances that define the process of housing financialisation in each case. As such, in this comparative approach we bring together cases that represent different rental systems, different ideologies of housing provision, policies and planning and different market dynamics to explore how the contigent trajectories of housing financialisation are defined by local dynamics and how institutional investors reshape their strategies to adjust and/or accommodate to local circumstances.
To shed light on the role of institutional investors as key actors in the finanicalisation of housing against the background of different local contexts, seven case studies were selected to offer key information on the structure of the housing markets and the current challenges for affordable housing supply. For this, London, Brussels and Milan are selected as cities with a traditionally ownership-centered housing market and in the case of Brussels and Milan with a weak social housing sector and weak rent regulations. This is to some degree also the case of Warsaw where the housing market transitioned from a planned economy to a “super homeownership society” with a peculiar mix of housing rights and a lack of regulation. This contrasts Malmö and Berlin, two cities that were at least in the past characterised by very strong regulation of the private market and a strong non-profit sector. Athens stands as a case of extreme austerity, indebtedness and impoverishment of the local population, forming a very specific environment for the financialisation of housing.
The case study chapters that follow analyse the activities of institutional investors and describe their role in the supply of affordable housing. Additionally, the political and planning instruments which cities employ vis á vis institutional investors are presented. Of particular interest, are the forms of public-private collaboration through which city planners and policy-makers interact with institutional investors. The presentation of the seven case studies is followed by a cross-case summary in which the comparison of the strategies and tragectory of institutional investors is used to identify the path-dependecies of housing financialisation, and the way local contingencies work out the interaction between investors and the political-administrative system. The impact of institutional investors on housing affordability is a recurring theme underlying the queries under scrutiny.
The work presented here is the outcome of a six-month project which was financed by Science Po Paris and included scholars from Athens, Berlin, Brussels London, Malmö, Milan and Warsaw. It has built on the long-term engagement of the participating scientists with their respective cities and a highly developed expertise in the housing conditions, market dynamics, planning regulations and policy issues in different contexts. Nevertheless, the study has an explorative character. It provides first hand ideas about the different financial logics across Europe which need further examination.
Keywords: Housing, financialisation, wealth, rentierism, spatial inequality, the Netherlands
In the first half of this chapter, I will discuss different aims of comparative research. At times, the debate on comparative studies is reduced to the idea that some studies want to demonstrate divergence (places becoming more different over time) and others convergence (places becoming more similar over time). I will argue that we need to move beyond the false divergence-convergence dichotomy, and need to go beyond critiques of conceptual stretching and unleash the potential of comparative urban studies to shed light on key concepts in social science that seek to describe empirical realities in, across and beyond cities. In the second half of this essay, I will take the example of the concept and real-world phenomenon of financialization, and will explain how a comparative approach to urban and housing financialization can shed light not only the cases studied, but also on the phenomenon of financialization itself. Reading across these two main sections, the argument is that a conceptual lens can help to study cases comparatively, thereby bringing to the fore how cases are both similar and different, but also how the comparative study of cases can help in understanding a real-world phenomenon, observed in different cities and countries. The concept used to illustrate this argument is financialization, but this essay it not one that defends this concept vis-à-vis other concepts (but see Aalbers 2019). Instead, the concept of financialization is used to illustrate the main point of the essay, which is that comparative studies have the potential to enhance our understanding of real-world phenomena across as well as beyond different cases. In short, this chapter makes the case for a comparative urban studies that does not only inform the field of urban studies, but social science more broadly defined. What is at stake here is not only comparative urban research but the very meanings and uses of urban studies.
Key words: global urbanisms, comparative research, global south, relationality, transnational regulation, postcolonial critique
Key words: housing, financialization, Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT),
Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), institutional investors, asset class
Keywords: gentrification; real estate; financial institutions; climate risk management; Miami, Florida
Keywords: corporate financialization; corporate sectors; non-financial corporations; shareholder payouts; shareholder value
KEYWORDS: Financialization; the state; symbiosis; co-evolution; mutation
KEY WORDS: Urban Operation, Urban redevelopment, Financialization, Public-Private Partnerships, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Key words: real estate sector; financialisation; regulation approach; economic growth; United Kingdom; in-depth interviews
Key words: elites, financialization, global cities, housing markets, offshore financial centres, spatial fix, London, New York
Keywords: Corporate financialization, corporate governance, critical accounting, financial geography, non-financial corporations (NFCs), shareholder value, spatial organization of the firm
Keywords: monopoly, Thorstein Veblen, intangible assets, shareholder value, corporate finance
Full OPEN ACCESS paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2024.2337570
Key words: housing, political economy, ideal types, Max Weber, capitalist accumulation, varieties
financialization of housing:
1. The federal government should ask the question: it is fair to provide REITs with a tax advantage? Should it create a level-playing field where tax advantages are not selectively doled out to one set of actors?
2. Different levels of government should consider cooperating with not-for-profit, community, grassroots, and other affordable housing providers. They could also consider directly building or managing housing stock.
3. This one should be a no-brainer: governments should regulate rental housing markets better, starting with regulating rent price increases and outlawing no-fault evictions. Governments often fear that this will deter investors. But if investors are buying up existing housing stock with the main aim of increasing rents, deterring them would be a positive outcome for tenants and society at large. Existing landlords can continue to make a profit if rents follow inflation (or income/pension levels).
4. Local governments can use their zoning and land use powers to require inclusionary and affordable housing.
5. Finally, the government should limit monopolies when one landlord is dominant in one market segment, e.g. rental flats within a certain price range or units within a particular neighbourhood.
Keywords: urban tourism; touristification; gentrification; financialization; Airbnb; short-term rentals; land rent.
The financialization of housing has already become a major issue in urban and housing studies and research has disclosed the growing relevance of institutional investors, financial motives, financialised management and calculation techniques in the transformation of housing into an asset class (Gabor & Kohl 2022; Wu et al., 2020; Fernandez & Aalbers, 2020; Aalbers et al., 2020). However, after more than 15 years of interdisciplinary research it has become clear that the term "financialisation" is developing as a relatively imprecise umbrella for a broad variety of topics. We tender that the actual “doing” of financialization is highly context-bound, defined by spatial and temporal local particularities and, as such, subject to an immense array of variations. For example, while in Germany and Sweden institutional investors have been buying up entire housing estates and formerly public housing companies, in other cities of central and eastern Europe real estate investment trusts or real estate funds are gaining a foothold in niche markets such as care facilities, student dormitories or micro-apartments. In Spain and Ireland, and more recently, in Greece financialization is often discussed in relation to debt management and the securitization of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs). In our study, we explore these differences and describe the variety of ways in which institutional investors have established themselves in European cities.
The chief aim of our study is to shed light on the role and strategies of institutional investors in local housing markets. First, we trace how institutional investors approach local housing markets in seven different countries. Second, we explore how institutional investors' activities enmesh with the provision of affordable housing. Third, we reflect on the local specificities and the way institutional investors become embedded in local real-estate markets to consider why investment strategies differ significantly amongst cities and, therefore, we disclose the different gateways in the cities under study. In doing so, we highlight the role of local context in the path-dependency of the financialisation of housing. A fourth focus is on the interplay between institutional investors, policy actors and governments. We assume that in a highly regulated field such as urban and housing policy, different forms of exchange and cooperation between institutional investors and local policy actors emerge in each case, reflecting local specificites and dynamics.
To address the above, we have chosen a comparative case study design. Moving away from a conventional comparative approach of identifying similarities and differences, we aim at teasing out how the general restructuring of financialised housing is continuously restructured and reshaped by local dynamics. This helps disclose the path-dependency of housing finanicialisation across seven cities. In other words, it is not only the generic trend of housing financialisation that shapes local housing markets, but local circumstances that define the process of housing financialisation in each case. As such, in this comparative approach we bring together cases that represent different rental systems, different ideologies of housing provision, policies and planning and different market dynamics to explore how the contigent trajectories of housing financialisation are defined by local dynamics and how institutional investors reshape their strategies to adjust and/or accommodate to local circumstances.
To shed light on the role of institutional investors as key actors in the finanicalisation of housing against the background of different local contexts, seven case studies were selected to offer key information on the structure of the housing markets and the current challenges for affordable housing supply. For this, London, Brussels and Milan are selected as cities with a traditionally ownership-centered housing market and in the case of Brussels and Milan with a weak social housing sector and weak rent regulations. This is to some degree also the case of Warsaw where the housing market transitioned from a planned economy to a “super homeownership society” with a peculiar mix of housing rights and a lack of regulation. This contrasts Malmö and Berlin, two cities that were at least in the past characterised by very strong regulation of the private market and a strong non-profit sector. Athens stands as a case of extreme austerity, indebtedness and impoverishment of the local population, forming a very specific environment for the financialisation of housing.
The case study chapters that follow analyse the activities of institutional investors and describe their role in the supply of affordable housing. Additionally, the political and planning instruments which cities employ vis á vis institutional investors are presented. Of particular interest, are the forms of public-private collaboration through which city planners and policy-makers interact with institutional investors. The presentation of the seven case studies is followed by a cross-case summary in which the comparison of the strategies and tragectory of institutional investors is used to identify the path-dependecies of housing financialisation, and the way local contingencies work out the interaction between investors and the political-administrative system. The impact of institutional investors on housing affordability is a recurring theme underlying the queries under scrutiny.
The work presented here is the outcome of a six-month project which was financed by Science Po Paris and included scholars from Athens, Berlin, Brussels London, Malmö, Milan and Warsaw. It has built on the long-term engagement of the participating scientists with their respective cities and a highly developed expertise in the housing conditions, market dynamics, planning regulations and policy issues in different contexts. Nevertheless, the study has an explorative character. It provides first hand ideas about the different financial logics across Europe which need further examination.
Keywords: Housing, financialisation, wealth, rentierism, spatial inequality, the Netherlands
In the first half of this chapter, I will discuss different aims of comparative research. At times, the debate on comparative studies is reduced to the idea that some studies want to demonstrate divergence (places becoming more different over time) and others convergence (places becoming more similar over time). I will argue that we need to move beyond the false divergence-convergence dichotomy, and need to go beyond critiques of conceptual stretching and unleash the potential of comparative urban studies to shed light on key concepts in social science that seek to describe empirical realities in, across and beyond cities. In the second half of this essay, I will take the example of the concept and real-world phenomenon of financialization, and will explain how a comparative approach to urban and housing financialization can shed light not only the cases studied, but also on the phenomenon of financialization itself. Reading across these two main sections, the argument is that a conceptual lens can help to study cases comparatively, thereby bringing to the fore how cases are both similar and different, but also how the comparative study of cases can help in understanding a real-world phenomenon, observed in different cities and countries. The concept used to illustrate this argument is financialization, but this essay it not one that defends this concept vis-à-vis other concepts (but see Aalbers 2019). Instead, the concept of financialization is used to illustrate the main point of the essay, which is that comparative studies have the potential to enhance our understanding of real-world phenomena across as well as beyond different cases. In short, this chapter makes the case for a comparative urban studies that does not only inform the field of urban studies, but social science more broadly defined. What is at stake here is not only comparative urban research but the very meanings and uses of urban studies.
Key words: global urbanisms, comparative research, global south, relationality, transnational regulation, postcolonial critique
Key words: housing, financialization, Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT),
Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), institutional investors, asset class
Keywords: gentrification; real estate; financial institutions; climate risk management; Miami, Florida
Keywords: corporate financialization; corporate sectors; non-financial corporations; shareholder payouts; shareholder value
KEYWORDS: Financialization; the state; symbiosis; co-evolution; mutation
KEY WORDS: Urban Operation, Urban redevelopment, Financialization, Public-Private Partnerships, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Key words: real estate sector; financialisation; regulation approach; economic growth; United Kingdom; in-depth interviews
Key words: elites, financialization, global cities, housing markets, offshore financial centres, spatial fix, London, New York
Keywords: Corporate financialization, corporate governance, critical accounting, financial geography, non-financial corporations (NFCs), shareholder value, spatial organization of the firm
Keywords: monopoly, Thorstein Veblen, intangible assets, shareholder value, corporate finance
The state is far from absent in the process of creating variegated patterns of housing financialization: it is directly implicated in each step that the wall of money takes towards securing HQC in local and national housing market sectors. The state actively—but not always consciously—creates the conditions for the financialization of housing and other assets, sectors and markets, often through a process I called “regulated deregulation” (Aalbers, 2016). The term indicates that the state is not withdrawing but rather being restructured (increasingly also through finance) in a way that favours the interest of some, often financialized corporations, and at the expense of others. Regulation is not being repealed to make the market mechanism function more smoothly; it is introduced to create new markets that end up looking nothing like the level playing field utopias espoused by neoliberal economists, think tanks, lobbyists and politicians. Of course the state could do other things, and luckily some arms of the state continue to, or start to, do other things—a theme we will revisit in the second half of this chapter.
Colin Crouch describes the situation that governments have created as “privatized Keynesianism”, which occurred initially by chance, but gradually became a crucial matter for public policy. Instead of governments taking on debt to stimulate the economy, individuals and families did so, including some rather poor ones. (...) Once privatized Keynesianism had become a model of general economic importance, it became a kind of bizarre collective good, however nested in private actions it was. (...) that very irresponsibility became a collective good. (Crouch, 2011: 114)
In this book I analysed how privatized Keynesianism was introduced in the years following the Great Moderation, a period that economists think of as one of stable growth and convergence, but which, in fact, was the beginning of the Great Excess, in which income and wealth inequality in many countries increased rapidly (Piketty, 2014). The lack of real income growth was matched with a rapid rise in household debt, and in particular, mortgage debt for the middle and to some extent lower classes.
Privatized Keynesianism, the Great Moderation, neoliberalization and financialization have transformed the nature of homeownership and rental housing, and in turn also the social relations of housing. We arrive here a fundamental point of contention between Marxist and Weberian housing scholars. As covered in Chapter 2, Marxists maintained that one’s position in the housing market is a result of one’s position in the labour market, i.e. social class determines housing position; while Weberians argued that one’s position in the housing market determines social class. Kemeny (1992), for example, argued that housing forms the basis for a new explanation of social inequality.
Due to the financialization of housing in today’s market, housing risks are increas ingly becoming financial risks. Financialization refers to the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements and narratives.
It also refers to the resulting structural transformation of economies, firms, states and households. This book asserts the centrality of housing to the contemporary capitalist political economy and places housing at the centre of the financialization debate.
A global wall of money is looking for High-Quality Collateral (HQC) investments, and housing is one of the few asset classes considered HQC. This explains why housing is increasingly becoming financialized, but it does not explain its timing, politics and geography. Presenting a diverse range of case studies from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, the chapters in this book include coverage of the role of the state as the driver of financialization processes, and the part played by local and national histories and institutions. This cutting edge volume will pave the way for future research in the area.
Where housing used to be something “local” or “national”, the wo-way coupling of housing to finance has been one crucial element in the recent crisis. It is time to reconsider the financialization of both homeownership and social housing. This book will be of interest to those who study international economics, housing systems, economic geography and financialization.
Wielrennen is van oudsher vooral populair in de Benelux, Frankrijk en Italië. Vanuit deze landen verspreidde de wielersport zich over de wereld. Maar hoe mondiaal is de wielersport vandaag de dag eigenlijk? In dit artikel analyseren wij de mondialisering van het wegwielrennen voor mannen.
Een belangrijke component in de uitbreiding komt doordat koopwoningen worden opgekocht door kleine verhuurders, het zogenaamde buy-to-let. Tussen 2006 en 2016 is buy-to-let met 75% toegenomen. Het gaat dan om de aankoop van woningen voor andere doeleinden dan eigen bewoning. In zowel de drie grote steden als Groningen en Maastricht wordt inmiddels 10 à 15 procent van de koopwoningen, en dertig procent van de woningen van minder dan 50 vierkante meter opgekocht door verhuurders. Deze nieuwe spelers op de koopmarkt verdringen potentiële eigenaar-bewoners.
Het regeringsbeleid van de afgelopen jaren heeft een belangrijke rol gespeeld in de groei van de particuliere huurwoningvoorraad in het algemeen en buy-to-let in het bijzonder. De prijzen van koopwoningen zijn gestegen omdat te laat en te gematigd is ingegrepen in de hypotheekrenteaftrek en de loan-to-value (LTV) van hypotheken. Bovendien heeft beleid ingezet op een vermindering van het aantal sociale huurwoningen en het beperken van toegang tot deze woningen. Deze ontwikkelingen zetten zowel de betaalbaarheid als toegankelijkheid van wonen onder druk, zeker in de populaire steden. Er is sprake van een nieuwe periode van woningnood.
De toename van het aantal particuliere huurwoningen is een reactie op de grote vraag van groepen die zelf geen koop- of sociale huurwoning kunnen bemachtigen. De revival hangt samen met een herstructurering van gereguleerde naar geliberaliseerde huur, waardoor zowel kleinschalige verhuurders als grote beleggingsfondsen meer interesse in de sector tonen. Dit is een internationale trend. In Duitsland zijn inmiddels enkele miljoenen huurwoningen opgekocht door ‘fiscale beleggingsinstellingen’; de grootste bezit 355.000 woningen en is op zoek naar uitbreidingsmogelijkheden over de grens.