Viral Debt

Jodi Gardner is a Professor and the Brian Coote Chair in Private Law at the University of Auckland. Her research focuses on the relationship between private law and social policy. Jodi was formerly a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge. Mia Gray is a Professor of Economic Geography at Cambridge University. She has published extensively on contemporary austerity, debt, and regional economies. She is also one of the editors of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society.Frederick F. Wherry is the Class of 1917 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and Founder of the Debt Collection Lab. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of nine books, including Credit Where It’s Due and Money Talks. His forthcoming book is What We Owe: How Debt Came for All of Us and How We Get Free.

“Debt does not accumulate by accident; it ramps up by design, settling unevenly across the social landscape, blighting the lives and futures of all but a wealthy elite. Debt has gone viral; finally, a single book explains how, when, where, and why that happened.”Susan Smith, Professor of Geography and President of the British Academy “Situating debt within a conceptual framework of ‘virus’ and ‘contagion’, this book offers a new approach to the study of debt in today’s society. In the wake of the global pandemic, this timely and important work deserves to be read and discussed widely.”Nicholas Gane, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick“This volume offers a novel framing of viral debt and how treating debt as a virus helps us understand ‘bad debts.’ They bring patently to light how indebtedness transcends individual choices and faults. This is an important book for the time we are in!”Nina Bandelj, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

• 1. Viral Debt: Origins, Pathways, and Consequences, Frederick F. Wherry, Mia Gray and Jodi Gardner; Part I: What Makes Households Vulnerable to Viral Debt; 2. How Welfare and Credit Regimes Shape Economic Policies During Times of Crisis: The Case of Covid-19, Marie-Lou Laprise and Andreas Wiedemann; 3. Viral Debts and the Economic Storytelling about Crisis, Johnna Montgomerie; 4. Unpacking Neoliberalism, Financialisation and Housing Class Inequality: Debt Virality, Policy Anomalies, and the Case of Mortgage Prisoners, Matthew Sparkes; Part II: Experience of Viral Spread; 5. How Eviction Protections Created New Debt Problems, Peter Hepburn, Jacob Haas, Emily Lemmerman, and Matthew Desmond; 6. The ABC of Growing Debt and Inequality: Austerity, Brexit and Covid-19, Karen Rowlingson; 7. How Did COVID-19 Feed into Later Life Financial Vulnerability in the UK?, Hilary Cooper; Part III: Responding to the viral debt aftermath; 8. State and personal debt, Covid and tax responses, Andy Lymer; 9. Ripple Effect of Debt and Health, John Ford, Anita Patel, and Anna Starling; 10. Medicine or Poison? Fintech, Racial Inequities, and Bad Debt, Mae Watson-Grote and Frederick F. Wherry; 11. Sunset Clauses, False Dawns: Crises and Possibilities for Debt Cancellation Through Law, Joseph Spooner