The politics of mortgage credit expansion in the small coordinated market economies

Abstract

Recent contributions to the comparative political economy literature claim that liberal market economies are vulnerable to asset booms and busts because of financial deregulation, shrinking welfare states and a political ideology emphasising financial self-sufficiency. This article examines the rapid expansion of mortgage lending in three coordinated market economies (CMEs): Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This expansion is puzzling given that all three countries are CMEs with generous welfare states. Yet the pattern of mortgage lending resembles the Anglo-Saxon or liberal market economies (LMEs) more than other CMEs. The article argues that mortgage bubbles in the small CMEs emerged as the unintended outcome of pairing neoliberal programmes to expand home ownership with collectivist housing institutions. This resulted in supply restrictions and rising property values which saddled households with extraordinarily high mortgage debts. In short, mortgage credit bubbles are not unique to Anglo-liberal welfare states and may have different origins.     

Consequences and dilemmas in therapeutic relationships with families resulting from mandatory reporting legislation

Mandatory reporting legislation has been adopted in every state to insure the protection of children from maltreatment. These statutes have become a significant factor in the lives of mental health professionals who work with children and families. Thirty psychotherapists who had made a recent report of child maltreatment on a client in treatment were interviewed about their experiences with reporting and the consequences of reporting for therapeutic relationships. Several potentially problematic consequences and dilemmas were identified by the therapists, including immediate and long-term effects on the therapeutic alliance and course of therapy, and conflicts of interest in working with children and families.     

The courts,interest groups,and public opinion about abortion

Public preferences about the availability of abortion under various circumstances have remained fairly stable over time. Yet a standard CBS/New York Times abortion question indicates that a significant shift in opinion occurred during the 1980s, whereby the public became increasingly supportive of legalized abortion as it is now. These very different patterns of public opinion about abortion suggest that the public perceived a shift in the abortion status quo, toward more restricted access, over time, and became more supportive of current abortion policy.A model of support for legalized abortion as it is now is developed that incorporates the influences of court activities and interest-group behavior. The analysis indicates that the public reacted directly to the activities of the courts, becoming more supportive of current abortion policy in response to media coverage of court cases that challenged the abortion status quo and Supreme Court nominations and confirmations. Although absolute preferences remained largely unchanged, it appears the public perceived an increasing threat to the status quo and became correspondingly less enamored with further restrictions on the availability of abortion.     

Genetic markers in human bone: I. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was isolated from a number of spongy and compact human bone tissue specimens, and the yield was estimated on a "per milligram of starting tissue" basis. DNA was, in addition, isolated from a number of corresponding blood and bone tissue specimens. Spectrophotofluorometry and ethidium bromide visualization on minigels were used to estimate the quantity and degree of degradation of DNA. The DNA from several blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing results by two different typing protocols with five different single-locus probes. DNA from several additional blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant results for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alpha phenotypes following polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and hybridization to specific allele-specific oligonucleotide (ASO) probes, and for the variable numbers of tandem repeats (VNTR) length polymorphisms 3' to the human apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene following PCR amplification with specific primers and analysis of the products by electrophoresis and ethidium bromide visualization.