Global financial markets have transformed over the past three decades with potentially dangerous results. Growing competitiveness in financial markets has forced banks to adapt by merging, growing, and innovating. The result has been an unprecedented transformation in the identity of society's borrowers: households and banks are borrowing more, businesses are borrowing relatively less. This 'Great Debt Transformation' has profound consequences: as we shift toward economic growth fueled by consumption and financial investment, instability, indebtedness, and inequality have all risen. This book...

Greg Fuller explores the importance and growing role of mortgage markets in the macroeconomy and provides a comparative analysis of housing finance across a number of European national economies, including the UK, as well as the United States.