Housing, Recommodification, and Financial Crisis in Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom is a dissertation written for my masters degree (MSc International Public Policy Analysis) at the University of Bath.
The dissertation examined the contribution of market based restructuring of housing and finance systems to financial crisis in three cases. The evidence – drawn from secondary literature and simple statistics – was found to support Hyman Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis which had come to prominence in public policy debates in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. The dissertation has a standard structure including a literature review, a section on methodology, empirical sections, a discussion, and a bibliography. The document amounted to just over forty pages.
Unlike the written assignments set during the first two semesters, the dissertation proved a close run thing, with the discussion, conclusion, introduction, and bibliography being completed at the eleventh hour. The literature review, theoretical framework, and even the section on methodology were completed steadily through the first part of the summer. A final decision on the case selection and design would not come until the week of the deadline though : only then did I find a secondary publication – a recently published eBook – containing what seemed sufficient material to add to the statistical sources I had already marshalled.
The dissertation was deemed just good enough – if a little rushed and short – to warrant the award of a masters degree with distinction overall.
Housing, Recommodification, and Financial Crisis in Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom
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