Asset Ownership and the New Inequality

Rethinking how we understand inequality, class and mobility in the new asset economy

About Us

Assets have become the essential financial instrument through which wealth and inequality is structured. Two decades of low-interest rates coupled with low and stable inflation created an economic context that encouraged wealth accumulation and financial security through debt-funded asset acquisition. Life chances and household security within this context has come to be defined through asset ownership, both in its ability to appreciate the financial position of asset owners and through the impacts that debt repayments have on the everyday finances of asset-owning households. Not only do assets determine the financial positions of households they are also activated as channels through which governments and monetary policy can shape the social and economic outcomes of their populations. Governments have eroded welfare in favour of private provisioning through assets and central banks are increasingly using debt obligations to speed up or slow down the economy. Our research asks interrogates the role of assets in structuring class in the 21st century and its effects on the everyday practices of households. We also ask questions of the role of assets in the decisions made by policymakers and technocrats in their pursuit of social and monetary policy goals.