• Medientyp: E-Artikel
  • Titel: Entrenchment or Retrenchment: The Political Economy of Mortgage Debt Subsidies in the United States and Germany
  • Beteiligte: Reisenbichler, Alexander
  • Erschienen: Comparative Politics CUNY, 2022
  • Erschienen in: Comparative Politics
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • DOI: 10.5129/001041522x16314500561319
  • ISSN: 0010-4159
  • Schlagwörter: Sociology and Political Science
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  • Beschreibung: <jats:p>Why do mortgage subsidies vary across countries? Until the 2000s, the U.S. and Germany provided large-scale subsidies for homeownership. Yet, their paths diverged when they faced deep economic crises at that time. While the U.S. doubled down on government support by quasi-nationalizing its mortgage market, Germany retrenched homeowner subsidies. This article argues that growth regimes shape coalitional logics that explain these contrasting outcomes. In the U.S. demand-led regime, where housing is key to growth, a bipartisan coalition entrenched mortgage subsidies to stimulate household credit and consumption. Germany's export-led regime, where housing is less central to growth, produced a broad-based coalition that retrenched homeowner subsidies to boost competitiveness. Detailed case studies contrast the quasi-nationalization of U.S. government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) with the retrenchment of the German "homeowner subsidy" (<jats:italic>Eigenheimzulage</jats:italic>).</jats:p>