Subordinate financialization in Argentina: housing issues.

IVANA SOCOLOFF

Lund

Workshop; Workshop: Financialisation of Housing and Violation of Housing Rights in the Global North and South.; 2019

Lund University

Although housing is a central aspect of financialization and there is a growing literature on the financialization of housing, forms of financialization in emerging/peripheral and/or unstable economies? remain understudied. This paper aims at contributing to filling this gap in the literature by taking the case of inflation indexed loans in Argentina as a fragile ?financial infrastructure? (Halbert & Attuyer, 2016).In line with current research that has shown that ?there are common trajectories within uneven and variegated financialization? (Aalbers, 2017), the case of Argentina seems to sustain the hypothesis that different institutional configurations are leading to an increase in mortgage debt and housing centered financialization, despite Argentina?s relative disconnection from the housing financialization process between 2001 and 2015.Contrary to the previous period, a recent drastic shift in the country?s financial institutional framework has taken place, in which indexed housing loans constitute an important element. To study this shift we focus in the formation of coalitions that led to the emergence and implementation of this device, in spite of Argentina?s high inflation rate. We argue that developers? corporations acted as sites of financialization for their role in aligning internal and external economic agents behind a common agenda. Despite some controversies over the applicable indexation coefficient, a consensus lead by developers? lobby was formed between 2008 and 2015 around the idea that indexed loans were the only solution to the housing deficit in Argentina. However, recent poor performance of many key macroeconomic variables is limiting its diffusion as a stable device. With this in mind, if financialization requires a set of durable calculative practices to extract future revenues, the case of Argentina?s mortgage loans dynamic reveals to us that the debate over housing financialization in peripheral economies should take the fragility of financial infraestructures more seriously.