Capital Switching and the Role of Ground Rent

2 Switching between Circuits and Switching between Submarkets

Bibliographic Data

ID4138922
AuthorsR J King (The University of Melbourne), Ross King (0000-0002-3148-1850, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year1989
Volume21
Issue6
Pages711-738
Publication date1989-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/a210711
OpenAlexW2144636416
LanguageEN
Citations received38
References cited25

In the first paper of this series of three, Harvey's 'circuits of capital' argument was discussed, and was linked first to ground rent theory, and second to forms of social change and crisis in advanced, Western-style economies. In the present paper these various theoretical insights are used to reflect upon the urban housing market in Melbourne from the 1930s to the 1980s. It is concluded (1) that average rent (average annual cost relative to wages), and thereby housing-related accumulation, rose virtually uninterrupted from 1932 to 1977, providing the incentive to the suburbanisation boom of the 1950s and 1960s; (2) that an extraordinary rise in average rent in 1973 - 74 (to be viewed as 'absolute rent') created an affordability barrier, inhibiting the ability of the housing sector to provide an outlet for speculative investment in the current 'global crisis'; and (3) that differentiated shifts in monopoly ground rent (that is, price rises in some submarkets and falls in others) thereby became increasingly important in providing incentive for both speculative and productive investment in housing. The third paper will extend this empirical exploration to the social conditions enabling these processes, and in turn affected by them

Boom · Economics · Incentive · Labour economics · Market economy · Microeconomics · Monetary economics · Monopoly · Australian History and Society · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub