Leo van Wissen

A Joint Household Travel Distance Generation And Car Ownership Model

The product of this research is a dynamic simultaneous equations model of car ownership and modal travel distances as a function of income. The data are from the Dutch National Mobility Panel (1984-1987); and four modes are encompassed: car driver, car passenger, train, and bus-tram-subway. A novel feature of the simultaneous equation system is the consistent treatment of the measurement scales of the variables: ordered probit functions for income and car ownership and tobit functions for distances. The dynamics are expressed in terms of pooled panel survey measurements of the variables at two points in time one year apart. This allows the identification of lagged responses and serial correlations over a one-year time-horizon. Results indicate that increased car ownership and car kilometers at time T2 is influenced by heavy usage of other modes at time T1. This indicates there are significant noninstantaneous adjustments of car ownership and usage that represent modal substitutions.

A DYNAMIC MODEL OF CAR FUEL-TYPE CHOICE AND MOBILITY

This study examines the relationship between car mobility and the choice of alternative-fuel versus gasoline cars in the Netherlands during the 1984-1988 period. One alternative fuel, liquified petroleum gas (LPG), is priced considerably lower than gasoline and is available at service stations throughout the Netherlands. Conversion costs lead to higher capital costs for LPG cars. A joint continuous/discrete multivariate demand model is applied to panel data to quantify the relationships among fuel-type choice, annual car usage and commuting distance, and to determine the effects of commuting subsidies, fixed and variable work locations, rail season tickets, and household socioeconomic characteristics. The model has lagged effects, individual-specific time-invariant terms, period effects, and compensation for panel conditioning and attrition. Results show that higher levels of car use favor choice of LPG cars, but the lower operating costs in turn lead to increases in car use. This latent demand for car travel is accentuated by travel reimbursements provided by employers.

The Functioning of the Housing Market in Amsterdam

This chapter describes the development and basic structure of the Amsterdam housing market, its submarkets, the nature of supply and demand, and prices. The chapter also analyzes in some detail the institutional-economic framework of the housing market in Amsterdam. From the large set of housing market instruments used in the Netherlands (86 in number, according to Conijn, 1984), we concentrate on the following policy instruments: planning and programming of residential buildings price controls, subsidies, financing, and taxes on housing expenditures; and housing distribution and allocation.

Modelling the entrepreneurial space-economy: an overview

The aim of this paper is to review recent contributions to the study of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics from a methodological and firm demographic perspective. Understanding the contemporary changes in business life requires a thorough understanding of structural changes in entrepreneurial behaviour and firm dynamics, both in space and in time. The spatial and temporal aspects of business life have in recent years received much attention, and a review is given here. The framework concept of the ‘firm life course’ is proposed in this article to integrate both dimensions. The firm life course represents the way firms organize their life path over time in sequences of critical events, decisions, and periods. The dimensions of time and space appear to be highly connected in business life. Not only is firm mobility increasing, but also are entrepreneurs increasingly acting as networkers. The emergence of virtual and dynamic networks of entrepreneurs calls for new methods of research of dealing with them. This article maps out some of the modern research trends in this domain.