POSTPONED “Housing Prices Never Fall”: The Development of Housing Finance in Taiwan

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

CANCELLED

Professor Chen Yi-Ling

Abstract

This talk deals with the path-dependent features of the financialization of housing in Taiwan, one of the East Asian developmental states. The levels of foreign capital and securitization in Taiwan's housing market remain relatively low, meaning domestic capital, of which there is an abundance, is the major financial source of such speculation. The process does not have the retrenchment of the welfare state because Taiwan has been a homeowner society. After financial liberalization in the 1980s, Taiwan’s state intervention in the housing and financial sectors has actually intensified via the enactment of more regulations to decrease the role of the informal financial and housing sectors. Even though this varied development of housing financialization, housing in Taiwan has largely become a tool of speculation, and housing affordability has become a serious problem.

Speaker Biography

Yi-Ling Chen is an associate professor in the School of Politics, Public Administration, and International Studies at the University of Wyoming. Her research interest is about the interaction of urban planning and social change, focusing on urban social movements, particularly those concerning housing access. She has published several journal articles and book chapters on housing, gender, urban movements, and regional development in Taiwan. She recently edited a book, Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities, and Housing in Asia (Palgrave MacMillan), and is currently working on a comparative study of the formation of social rental housing in East Asia, Europe and the USA.

* All SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies are free and open to all to attend. We suggest you arrive a few minutes early at the venue to secure your seat.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ml156@soas.ac.uk