Retail finance, mortgage lending, and risk

Marek Mikuš

Chapter 4 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Economic Anthropology, 2025, pp 191-197 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: While concepts and practices around risk are an established concern in economic anthropology and the anthropology of (high) finance, they have so far received less explicit attention in anthropological studies of retail finance. To address this gap, this entry builds on a condensed account of the changing social construction of risks of mortgage loans in Croatia during the last three decades. While the imposition of very high and unfair risks on mortgagors tended to be normalized and rendered invisible before the Global Financial Crisis, the effects of those risks after the crisis led to the contestation and partial de-risking of Croatian mortgage finance. Thus, the ways in which various risks of mortgage debt affect debtors depend on their changing contractual definitions and legal regulation, which further suggests that financialization does not necessarily follow a unidirectional trajectory towards more speculation and risk-taking.

Keywords: Croatia; Household debt; Mortgages; Retail finance; Risk; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035312566
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