Consumer city or production city? Market areas and density effects in the Netherlands

Using detailed Dutch grid-cell data, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and VU University Amsterdam investigated the elasticity between population and different kinds of amenities in the Netherlands, for both employment and the number of the establishments. This has been done by applying various econometric techniques, including fixed effects and a multilevel modelling approach, on both grid-cell and municipality levels.

Relation between population and the number of ameneties

This study has found that municipalities differ in their elasticities between population and amenities, with significantly larger differences between the types of amenities. Moreover, elasticities are significantly greater for employment figures than for the number of establishments, which may point to internal scale economies dominating over external scale economies.

PBL working paper 11

Authors

Thomas de Graaff (Department of Spatial Economics, VU University Amsterdam), Otto Raspe (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)

Specifications

Publication title: Consumer city or production city? Market areas and density effects in the Netherlands
Publication date: 30 May 2013
Publication type: Publication
Publication language: English
Product number: 1109