The assetization of care? A comparative exploration of investor logic in healthcare systems in England, Canada, and the Netherlands

Fenna Nijboer, Syb Kuijper, Tim White, Paula Rowland, Eline Marie Linthorst, Justin Waring and Iris Wallenburg

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper examines how financial actors enter and reshape healthcare systems, building new, often transnational, social, technical, and financial infrastructures for organising and providing care. We use the concept of assetization – the transformation of ‘things’ into rent-generating assets for investors – to explore how financial actors appear within healthcare. Drawing on empirical case studies from England, Canada, and the Netherlands, we show how assetization unfolds differently across national contexts, shaped by political cultures, regulatory environments, and institutional legacies. Rather than deploying uniform strategies, financial actors respond strategically to systemic frictions and perceived crises, positioning themselves as problem-solvers and embedding investor logic into healthcare provision. As such, assetization is an active process that constructs new infrastructures facilitating future investment and normalising financial presence in healthcare. By tracing how an emerging investor logic reshapes the conditions that allow financial actors to turn healthcare into an asset across different socio-political and institutional contexts, and by tracing the mechanisms through which this logic is articulated and enacted, this paper reveals how care is increasingly integrated into broader circuits of financialization. In doing so, we raise critical questions about the evolving governance, valuation, and organisation of healthcare under expanding financial influence, pointing towards a future research agenda

Keywords: investor logic; private investments; financial actors; assetization; healthcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F3 G3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2026-05-28
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Published in Health Economics, Policy and Law, 28, May, 2026. ISSN: 1744-1331

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