Peru’s housing boom stemmed from a state subsidy, not property titling

Evidence

The government of Alejandro Toledo, elected in 2001, introduced an emergency economic program, whose centerpiece was the creation of the Fondo MiVivienda, a state subsidy for low-income mortgages from commercial banks and finance companies, designed to create jobs in construction and simultaneously support the country’s ailing commercial banks and construction industry. (See International Finance Corporation 2005, and Fondo MiViviendo n.d.) The World Bank (2004, 10) was then able to report, without explanation, a sudden increase in mortgage lending to the poor as though it were a consequence of its property titling program. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1992

Categorization

• SEED: Possible essay or article angle: how the World Bank’s credit attribution to market reforms masks the actual interventions — subsidy and bank bailouts — that drove measured outcomes.
• XREF: connects to: Peruvian property titles shifted household labor toward outside work and adults — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1926; Peru’s titling program concentrated titles in cities, not rural target zones. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2006

Broader Connections

• Peru’s titling program concentrated titles in cities, not rural target zones. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2006