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Interest in higher education institutions (HEIs) as instruments for development has increased in recent years. The main objective of this paper is to address the contribution of HEIs to development through their missions, models, and challenges. With this purpose, we perform a historical analysis and characterise higher-education systems through the perspective of university models and missions, noticing relevant aspects regarding the evolution of this institution over time, as well as the transformations undergone. We also consider the main challenges that current higher education systems face in the 21st century. As methodological approaches, we carry out a literature review complemented by a comparative analysis based on data from the higher education systems of ten European countries. The findings show that HEIs can contribute to development through their missions, which are related to the models of higher education. Their first mission (teaching) contributes to improving human capital and attracting highly qualified people to their regions; the second mission (research) improves scientific knowledge which can foster innovative activities; and the third mission (community service) acts as a link between research and business, including patents, business incubators, and collaboration agreements. We also conclude that the challenges of higher education in the 21st century can be categorised essentially in three main areas: (1) globalisation and massification of higher education, as well as the internationalisation of HEIs' missions and diversification of the educational supply to attract new students; (2) new technologies related to the digitalisation of teaching and distance learning; and (3) higher education entrepreneurship, showing the importance of university-company relationships. This paper provides a global setting for a reflection on the role of HEIs in the 21st century, given their connection with society and the need for a more effective contribution to socio-economic development.

Nico Wijnberg began his work in economic development in The Netherlands as the Dutch government country specialist for Russia and Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan. His job was to assist companies in their efforts to enter the Russian and Kazakhstani markets. In this position, it was important to not only stay aware of the ever-changing commercial opportunities in these countries, but also to learn and communicate in Russian. Wijnberg now works as International Business Concierge at the Georgia Department of Economic Development in Atlanta. Equipped with 10 international offices in Toronto, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Munich, London, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing, this Department of roughly 250 people focuses on promoting Georgia in different parts of the world. Through his experiences, Wijnberg has learned that being able to speak different languages makes a crucial difference in economic development. In this keynote address, Wijnberg begins by describing his personal background, The Netherlands, and the importance of languages in the Dutch educational system. He goes on to discuss how this relates to his present work as International Business Concierge and the role languages play in economic development.

Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects has remained more or less constant. In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-performing-arts graduates in 1985. There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone to college. Most important, graduates in the arts, psychology, and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not the only goal of higher education, but it is one of the main reasons taxpayers subsidize higher education through direct government college support, as well as loans, scholarships, and grants. The potential wage gains for college graduates is reason enough for students to pursue a college education. The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That's a lot of wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get something for those two years, but it's less than half of the wage gains from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt is not an ideal way to begin a career. A big part of the problem is that the United States has paved a single road to knowledge, the road through the classroom. Lots of students, however, crash before they reach the end of the road. Who can blame them? Sit-down learning is not for everyone, perhaps not even for most people. There are many roads to an education. Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well educated. Apprentices in Europe are well educated but not college schooled. The author contends the need to open more roads to education so that more students can reach their desired destination.

Background: People with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) cannot communicate the need to change their incontinence products. The smart continence care (SCC) product Abena Nova signals caregivers when change is needed. This provides the opportunity for more person-centered care, increased quality of life, and a decreased number of leakages. However, there is a need for evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of such technology compared with regular continence care (RCC) for people with PIMD. Objective: This paper presents the research protocol for an effectiveness and cost-effectiveness study with people with PIMD living in long-term care facilities in the Netherlands. Methods: A cluster randomized trial will be conducted in 3 consecutive waves across 6 long-term care providers for people with disabilities and 160 participants with PIMD. Long-term care providers are randomized at a 1:1 ratio, resulting in an intervention group and a group continuing RCC. The intervention group will receive implementation guidance and use SCC for 3 months; the other group will continue their RCC as usual and then switch to SCC. This study consists of three components: effectiveness study, economic evaluation, and process evaluation. The primary outcome will be a change in the number of leakages. The secondary outcomes are quality of life, the difference in the number of changes, the work perception of caregivers, cost-effectiveness, and cost utility. Data collection will occur at T0 (baseline), T1 (6 weeks), T2 (12 weeks), and T3 (9-month follow-up) for the first 2 intervention groups. An intention-to-treat analysis will be performed. The economic evaluation will be conducted alongside the trial from the societal and long-term care provider perspectives. Qualitative data collection through interviews and field notes will complement these quantitative results and provide input for the process evaluation. Results: This research was funded in December 2019 by ZonMw, the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development. As of June 2022, we enrolled 118 of the 160 participants. The enrollment of participants will continue in the third and fourth quarters of 2022. Conclusions: This study will provide insights into the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of SCC for people with PIMD, allowing long-term care providers to make informed decisions about implementing such a technology. This is the first time that such a large-scale study is being conducted for people with PIMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peripheral regions, like others, require a sustained flow of global knowledge to stimulate innovation and economic growth. Unfortunately, the dearth of innovative firms in these regions hampers foreign knowledge attraction. Nevertheless, academics are recognized as potential agents to perform such a role considering their embeddedness in diverse collaboration ties. As feasible as this may seem, prior research has not thoroughly examined this proposition. This paper, therefore, investigates how the collaboration activities of bridging academics facilitate the flow of knowledge to peripheral regions. Employing a case study of academics in a peripheral region in the Netherlands, it also identifies the mechanisms enhancing knowledge flows. The findings indicate academics tend to have more collaborations with partners in academia and industry than other sectors. Additionally, they use various pathways to establish cooperation relations. Lastly, the mobility of researchers and collaborative projects constitute the widely used channels for knowledge transfer. The implications of these findings for universities and policy-makers include the need to devote particular attention to cooperation ties of faculty; and the assessment of the knowledge needs of organizations in a region and connecting them with academics with the right expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses reports within the issue on topics including economic development in the Netherlands, pension system design in the European Union, and private saving imbalances.

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we try to bridge the gap between the outcome ambitions of competition policy in terms of welfare gains and consumer surplus and the longer term effects of competition policy on growth and employment. First of all, an overview is given of the different definitions of welfare. We explain why maximising the consumer surplus is an important part of the mission statement for most competition authorities. In the second part of the paper we estimate the impact of the introduction of the competition law on economic development. The effects of antitrust policies, merger control and energy regulation on the consumer surplus appear substantial. This increase in consumer surplus can be interpreted as a cut in the “market power wedge” which, from a modelling point of view, is comparable to a cut in the tax wedge. A model simulation for the Netherlands shows that the economy responded positively to this increase in the consumer surplus. We find that production has grown by an extra 0.5% and that employment has increased by 0.4% as a result of the enforcement of the Competition Law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence of government policies in explaining output, employment and investment in The Netherlands during the period 1966-1989. The paper develops an empirical macroeconomic model estimated with annual data relating to the period 1958-1989. It finds that restrictive fiscal policies in the eighties have had adverse short-term effects on output and employment. Furthermore, the drop in the rate of increase in tax and social security contribution rates in this period has boosted output, employment and investment. However, the shift in public expenditure from investment to consumption has exerted a negative impact on these variables, largely offsetting the positive impact of the tax policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the effect of gross domestic product, inflation, and natural resource rent on foreign direct investment in the Netherland. Our analysis employs the Autoregressive distributed lag model from 1980 to 2018. The empirical results show that gross domestic product and natural resource rent positively affected foreign direct investment while inflation negatively affected both the short and long run. This study recommends that government officials and policymakers formulate policies to promote foreign direct investment for the development of the economy of the Netherland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the relationship between knowledge and economic development. The study considers nine countries grouped in three different development models: 1)the Asian model includes Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore; 2) the Anglo-Saxon model includes the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada and 3)the European model includes Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The data was sourced from the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum, the PISA reports, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the Global Innovation Index of the World Bank. The Asian group ranked highest for innovation as shown through the applicati on of patents; they also obtained the highest scores in the PISA test. The Anglo Saxon group stood out by having a good institutionalized knowledge system. From the European group, Germany is recognized by its innovation capabilities and the Netherlands by the quality of its higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the evolution of organizational and management structures in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, highlighting the shift towards more agile and hybrid models to enhance adaptability and resilience. Topics discussed include the comparative analysis of management frameworks, the impact of organizational size on decision-making speed and flexibility, and the influence of cultural and business practices on management structures.

In many rural areas, not only in The Netherlands but also elsewhere in Europe, has been observed a variety of employment opportunities for rural populations, following the decline in traditional agricultural employment. This contributes to the fact that the countryside is changing and rural areas can be viewed as new spaces of work. As a result, rural economy is no longer dominated by agricultural activities, but by activities such as small scale industrial production, service provision, landscape management, and residential use. To a certain extent these activities have the form of side-activities next to primary income sources. Most attention in both scientific literature and policies is focused on side-activities by farmers, such as agro-tourism and direct marketing. However, according to empirical data from The Netherlands, most side-activities are developed by non-farmers. In this paper the focus is on this last group. The amounts and types of non-farmers' and farmers side-activities will be deployed, together with their motives to start new entrepreneurship endeavors and the impact on the local community. It will be argued that this type of activities will stimulate rural economic development offering new job opportunities for income generation to the rural inhabitants and create new economic spaces in rural geographical contexts transforming the rural economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do firm entry and exit improve the competitiveness of regions? If so, is this a universal mechanism or is it contingent on the type of industry or region in which creative destruction takes place? This paper analyses the effect of firm entry and exit on the competitiveness of regions, as measured by total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on a study across 40 regions in the Netherlands over the period 1988-2002, we find that firm entry is related to productivity growth in services, but not in manufacturing. The positive impact found in services does not necessarily imply that new firms are more efficient than incumbent firms; high degrees of creative destruction may also improve the efficiency of incumbent firms. We also find that the impact of firm dynamics on regional productivity in services is higher in regions exhibiting diverse but related economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the importance of financial and other obstacles to innovation in the Netherlands using statistical information from the CIS 3.5 innovation survey. We report results on the effect of these obstacles on the firms’ decision to abandon, prematurely stop, seriously slow down, or not to start an innovative project. These results are compared with those from other studies in the Netherlands and other countries. We end with a discussion of policy measures that have been taken to overcome, or at least attenuate these obstacles, such as R&D tax incentives, venture capital financing and policy mix packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Dutch planning system has been widely feted as a coordinated, 'plan-led' and evidence-informed system that has been successfully implemented, resulting in sensitive land management, an absence of urban sprawl and the protection of 'green areas'. However, at least since the 1970s, the reality has been somewhat different. This paper reviews Dutch planning history over the past fifty years to highlight in particular the challenge of implementation. The paper also reviews the current challenges facing Dutch planners and provides some international reflection from Dutch experiences for Irish planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with some aspects of monetary and fiscal policy in an open economy. For this purpose we base our conclusions on an empirical macro-model for the Netherlands for the years 1953 through 1975. For monetary policy the principal guidelines seem to be the external position and the inflation rate. The desired composition of expenditures and the rate of economic growth seem to be the principal guidelines for fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Dutch transaction-level data on international trade we find that the intensive margin drives trade growth year by year. After 6 years, new trade relations cover about 50 % of Dutch exports. Only 25 % of the new relations specified by firm, product and destination survives after 2 years. The estimates conclude that new trade relations with new exporting firms or with new destinations have lower hazard rates than those with new products. If the destination is an EU country the hazard is much lower as is also case for higher initial sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modality in which the state manages the public debt has always represented and will continue to represent a subject of real importance, and the discussions regarding the level of budget deficit, the indebtedness degree and its implications on the social wellness are representing an major actuality at national level and also at European Union level. In this paper it is presented a comparative analysis between Romania and Holland in what regards the dependence between public debt and budget deficit and its GDP, as also the real public debt's variation in time series for Romania and Holland, in tandem with the variation in time of ARX model, highlighting the residuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active coalitions of regional stakeholders are at the heart of contemporary regional economic development policies, such as Smart Specialisation or Constructing Regional Advantage. These coalitions consist of actors from various organizations such as regional authorities, companies and higher education institutions that come together to achieve common agendas and advance their region. Accordingly, the numerous stakeholders are expected to work together seamlessly, build and implement strategies and thereby deliver regional development. However, by assuming that strategy formulation and implementation is straightforward, the challenges that lie within partnerships and the tensions that may arise between stakeholders can become neglected. Therefore, it is vital to understand tensions that drive towards situations in which strategy-building is not successful and 'black holes' of strategy-building emerge. By identifying the tensions between regional partners in the Twente region of the Netherlands, the aim is to understand how such stakeholder tensions affect regional development. It is assumed that by easing or resolving these tensions, stakeholder partnerships can contribute to the successful advancement of their region. The data for this qualitative case study are drawn from both research interviews and secondary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite of being affected by the economic crisis, the Netherlands managed to minimize its effects. This situation is highlighted in a comparison with Romania and the European Union, between the levels of the most important economic indicators. Moreover, when other countries registered negative trends in their economic growth, the Dutch economy succeeded in this matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of the Ethiopian cut flower industry, illustrating how rapidly a potential comparative advantage can be realised. But the question is to what extent a country benefits from this in the long run, if foreign direct investment is the principal driving force. Will the new industry become an enclave, or will it be accompanied by a process of building local capabilities, a process which we denominate endogenisation? A value chain framework is used to analyse the industry and to develop a number of indicators on the development direction. The cut flower industry in Ethiopia is characterised by a dominant role of Dutch foreign investors, Dutch trade auctions which dominate the export trade, and the Dutch development cooperation which plays an important role in the development of the sector. This raises the question to what extent this triple role of the Dutch contributes to endogenisation or to enclave formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of flood safety is of paramount importance in densely populated deltaic regions. The Dutch rely on flood defences to protect their lives and livelihoods from large-scale floods. The paper “Changing estuaries, changing views” (Smits et al., Hydrobiologica 565:339–355, ) criticizes this strategy and presents an alternative that could be summarized as a proposal to leave deltas untouched and to rely on natural sedimentation to reduce the impact of floods. It seems questionable, however, whether such a strategy will often be compatible with population pressures and efforts to stimulate economic growth. Moreover, it presupposes morphological conditions that seem highly unrealistic, not just in the Netherlands but also in many other sediment-starved coastal systems. Other than recommending countries not to implement the Dutch flood protection strategy and to leave deltas untouched, it should be recommended that solutions be tailored to local circumstances. The choice of a flood protection strategy should be based on a balanced evaluation of alternatives, including a realistic assessment of physical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the theory of democratic development. Theories of democratic development address themselves to two distinct though related questions. Political histories of democracies typically pursue the question of emergence whereas modern analytic studies tend to focus on the conditions of stabilization. Of all the theoretical works in the field, Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy stands out as the major effort to answer both sets of questions. This article intends, first, to evaluate critically Moore's theory, indicating certain revisions, additions, and omissions that are required to make the theory more adequate. On the basis of that evaluation, the paper formulates a revised theory. Then the revised theory was tested on a new case study, that of the Netherlands, to see what further modifications of the theory, if any, may be necessary. This analysis suggests that the revised theory serves reasonably well as a statement of the most general and important conditions that must be satisfied if democratic political organization is to emerge out of feudal structures and achieve a measurable degree of stability. This article further examines the ability of the theory to account for the emergence of stable democracy in the Netherlands.

This study analyzes the impact of globalization and income on ecological footprint over the period of 1970 to 2018 in the five highly globalized countries of the European Union ranked by the KOF index. To this end, the study uses a Fourier autoregressive distributed lag cointegration and Fourier Toda-Yamamoto causality methods. Studies that examine the effects of globalization on environmental degradation often neglect structural changes, which can lead to biased results. Using Fourier approximations, this study is the first to conduct an environmental assessment incorporating smooth structural changes for the five highly globalized countries of the European Union. The results show that (i) cointegration exists in Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark. (ii) The EKC hypothesis is valid for Switzerland and Denmark, while in Sweden and Austria, there is a U-shaped relationship between income and ecological footprint. (iii) The turning point at which income improves environmental quality is $68,191 for Switzerland and $46,600 for Denmark, and both countries have exceeded this per capita income level. (iv) Globalization is a factor that promotes environmental sustainability in Switzerland and the Netherlands. In order to regulate and manage environmental issues effectively, policy-makers should take advantage of economic development in Switzerland and Denmark as well as globalization in the Netherlands and Switzerland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking an historical and descriptive approach, this paper explores migratory patterns of Senegalese, Ghanaians, and Nigerians crossing the Netherlands since the 1970s and Dutch reactions to these migratory patterns. This exploration is placed in the context of West African migration worldwide and based on census material, historical data and empirical data from others and examples from my fieldwork in Senegal and in the Netherlands. The study of West African migrants is specifically of interest in the Netherlands because West African immigration, especially from Ghana and Nigeria, formed an important element in the growth of the authorities' anxiety about illegality and criminality in Dutch society. Dutch antimigrant political climate and strict immigration measurements seem to have two, opposing effects: on the one hand, the period of illegality, and thus of restricted movement, for illegal migrants increases. On the other hand, the stimulus for those with a legal status to migrate out of the Netherlands, and thus their mobility, also increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration always played an important role in Dutch society. However, little quantitative evidence on its effect on economic development is known for the period before the twentieth century even though some stories exist about their effect on the Golden Age. Applying a VAR analysis on a new dataset on migration and growth for the period 1570-1800, we find that migration had a positive effect on factor accumulation during the whole period, and a positive direct effect on the per capita income during the Golden Age. This seems to confirm those studies that claim that the Dutch economy during its Golden Age at least partially benefitted from immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we construct a detailed dataset of the national accounts of Holland (1347-1807). Using this dataset, we demonstrate that this economy was characterized by persistent economic growth caused by, depending on the period, structural change (share of industry and services in the economy increases), technological development, and factor substitution. During the entire period GDP per capita increased by on average 0.19% per year. This persistent growth, however, was highly unstable due largely to the importance of international services in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because promotions are an important source of wage growth, we argue that the low incidence of promotions among part-time workers will contribute to the emergence of the part-time wage gap. We test this claim using Dutch employer–employee matched data. We find that the part-time wage gap is absent among young school leavers, but that it is well established among more mature workers. Moreover, we find that promotions account for a wage growth of about eight log points. Finally, workers in part-time jobs experience a lower rate of promotion relative to workers in full-time jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More food and energy allow for more people who then require more food and energy, and so it has gone for centuries. At the same time, economic progress leads to a different lifestyle with an increasing demand for energy and food, also accelerating food waste. Fueling this food-energy-population dynamic is an ever-increasing conversion of unreactive dinitrogen (N2) to reactive N (Nr), which then results in a cascade of positive (food and energy for people) and negative (damage to people, climate, biodiversity, and environment) impacts as Nr is distributed throughout Earth systems. The most important step in reducing the environmental impacts of Nr is limiting its human-based creation. In this article, therefore, we focus on this most important first step: the conversion of N2 to Nr by human activities. Specifically, we examine Nr creation and use (they are different!) on a global and regional basis and Nr use on a global and regional per capita basis. In addition, we introduce the metric Nr Use Index (NUI), which can be used to track and project Nr use relative to a fixed point in time. We then assess the progress in Nr management over the past 20 years. Our article presents a case study of the Netherlands to show what one country, beset by Nr-relatedproblems that have led to an N crisis, did to address those problems and what worked and what didn't work. The article concludes with an assessment of what the future might hold with respect to Nr creation and use, including a review of other projections. We expect that NUI will increase especially in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The other parts of the world are consolidating or even decreasing NUI. In Latin America and Asia, there is limited agricultural land, and by increasing NUI for food the risk of Nr pollution is very high. The Netherlands has shown not only what effects can be expected with increasing NUI but also what successful policies can be introduced to limit environmental losses. Our assessment shows that Nr creation needs to be limited to prevent local to global environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making on transport infrastructure projects in the Netherlands has been facing a remarkable wind of change in recent years. In the 1990s, academics and practitioners in policy analysis, public policy and planning all claimed that the traditional policy analysis methods were obsolete, yet they have experienced a sudden resurgence since 2000 in the form of OEEI (Overview of Economic Effects of Infrastructure), a refined application of cost-benefit analysis (CBA). This paper delves into why this new version of CBA has become so politically successful despite predictions made to the contrary. In addition, it focuses on whether this resurgence may lead to 'econocracy' (conceptual hegemony by economists and their ideologies and methods over other approaches), and, if so, how this can be prevented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines disparities in the level of economic development at the beginning of the 19th century, comparing between the Netherlands and Java. A detailed reconstruction of GDP and purchasing power parities shows that before the Industrial Revolution Java’s GDP per capita was about a third of the level of the Netherlands, confirming Angus Maddison’s estimates. Disparities in real wages were much smaller, however, for skilled laborers real wages on Java were higher than in the Netherlands. This paradox arises because the structure of the economy and the distribution of income of both countries was very different. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Introduces several articles discussed during the conference `Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade' held at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Revival of the Heckscher-Ohlin model; Evidence of a positive empirical relationship between openness to international trade and growth.

Presents several books on economic policy of Netherlands. "Dimensional Analysis for Economists," by De Jong F. J.; "The Theory of Quatitative Economic Policy With Applications to Economic Growth and Stabilization," by Fox K. A., Sengupta J. K. and Thorbecke E.; "Business Cycles and Manufacturers' Short-term Production Decisions," by Moriguchi C.; Others.

This research establishes a link between the Brethren of the Common Life ( BCL), a religious community founded by Geert Groote in Deventer in the late fourteenth century, and the early economic development of the Netherlands. The BCL stimulated human capital accumulation. The historical analyses show that the BCL contributed to the high rates of literacy, to the high level of book production and to city growth in the Netherlands. These findings are supported by a set of OLS regressions and further corroborated by 2 SLS estimates that use distance from Deventer as an instrument for the presence of the BCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban design schemes accompanied by avant-garde design of space have been an outcome of economic growth of cities and countries in many periods of time. At the beginning of the 21st century, Nieuw Crooswijk in Rotterdam was the largest area involved in nationally launched policies. Many times the conflicts surrounding the plan were in the news, particularly concerning the aim to attract higher incomes. Gentrification, with displacement of present and original residents forms a central issue and the discussions in Nieuw Crooswijk fit within the more general urban landscape and language of urban regeneration in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]