The foundations of this book rest on an analysis of World Bank archival documents relating to the institution’s housing operations. The task of identifying relevant housing projects was facilitated enormously by the generosity of the authors of an earlier World Bank review, Robert Buckley and Jerry Kalarickal. Thank you, Robert and Jerry, for kindly sharing the database constructed for the Thirty Years of World Bank Lending for Shelter report.

Through the process of putting together The World Bank and the Globalisation of Housing Finance, colleagues at the University of York have been a consistently valuable source of support and guidance. Members of the Department of Politics’ Political Economy Research Cluster listened patiently to my presentation of early ideas and probed effectively, as did members of the Department of Economics’ vibrant Centre for Historical Economics and Related Research at York (CHERRY). In addition, helpful comments on draft chapters were gratefully received from colleagues including Carlos Solar, Lucia Quaglia, Martin Smith, Nicole Lindstrom, and Tony Heron. While the input from a range of colleagues has strengthened the work, any shortcomings are my own.