8 - Implications and Conclusion

Summary

This chapter concludes the book by reflecting on its broader implications. It delineates the politics behind credit regimes and reflects on the underlying political coalitions and dynamics behind credit markets’ complementary and substitutive relationships with welfare states. It then discusses how credit markets amplify old and create new forms of social exclusion and inequality through discrimination, credit scoring, or differential credit access. As credit markets have grown more influential and increasingly determine life chances, equal and fair access to credit is now a prerequisite for full participation and inclusion in labor markets, housing markets, as well as educational opportunities and wealth-building trajectories. The chapter ends by discussing potential ways in which credit markets and welfare states can work together, not against each other, to ensure a fairer and more equal distribution of social risks and opportunities.