With apologies for any cross-postings.
Please reply to Lynda Lynn ([log in to unmask]) to confirm attendance, not to me.
OpenSpace - Doreen Massey 2nd Annual Lecture
With
Professor Susan Smith
(Girton College, Cambridge)
Wednesday, 10th March 2010
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
Berrill Lecture Theatre:14:00 -16:00
Refreshments:16:00 Berrill Café
http://www3.open.ac.uk/contact/locations.aspx
“Close encounters: a tale of three markets and four visions”
Organised by the OpenSpace Research Centre and the Geography Department of the Open
University
http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/about-the-
faculty/departments/geography/research/research.php
**RSVP Lynda Lynn - [log in to unmask] to confirm your attendance**
Abstract
The steady integration of housing, mortgage and financial markets is a hallmark of the
modern economy. The prevailing wisdom, boosted by the credit crisis of 2007-8, is that
this has already gone too far; that processes tying households’ accounts into global
financial flows could and should be reversed. But other ideas are in play. Most
governments, for example, are struggling to restore ‘business as usual’ in the world of
lending and borrowing; while some economists suggest that housing and financial
markets should be more – not less – closely integrated. This lecture considers all these
visions for housing’s financial future, and – of course – adds its own.
Substantively, the discussion hangs around a financial curiosity. Few disagree that the
housing economy is, to an extent, implicated in the recent recession. But it is odd that so
much turns on the credit/debt rather than investment/equity side of the
equation. The spotlight is on the securitisation of lending, the incorporation of mortgage
backed securities into complex credit derivatives, and the failure of credit default swaps
to manage the risks this implies. But this is only part of the picture. Why, for example,
has there never been a market for financial instruments based on the performance of
housing assets? Why aren’t home buyers better protected against the investment risks
built into their housing package? Using the tools of material sociology, cultural economy
and the geography of finance to address questions like this, I consider what might be
achieved if a ‘synthetic’ housing market were to succeed; and what might be lost if it
failed.
Professor Susan Smith
Bio
Susan J. Smith is Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. She was formerly Professor of
Geography and a Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University; and
before that she held the Ogilvie Chair of Geography at the University
of Edinburgh. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, as well as a member of the Academy of Social Sciences, and of the Society of
Authors. Her current research focuses squarely on this issues raised in
this lecture; her latest work appears in Smith, S J and Searle, B A. (eds) 2010, The
Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing (Wiley-Blackwell), as well as in recent
issues of Environment and Planning A, GeoForum, Housing Studies, Journal
of Social Policy, and the European Journal of Housing Policy.
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