Pascal Beckers

Immigrant entrepreneurship on the move: a longitudinal analysis of first- and second-generation immigrant entrepreneurship in the Netherlands

Second-generation immigrants starting businesses in industries not traditionally associated with immigrants have inspired a new line of research on migrant entrepreneurship. New entrepreneurs are expected to profit from better economic prospects arising from the relatively high levels of human capital available to them and improved integration into society compared to their parents generation. So far, it is unclear whether these expectations have been met owing to a lack of reliable data on immigrants in general and immigrant entrepreneurs in particular. This paper uses newly available data from Statistics Netherlands (1999–2004) to compare the differences between the business success of second- and first-generation immigrant entrepreneurs. The data enable us to compare these intergenerational differences for each of five major non-Western groups of immigrants in the Netherlands and contrast them with developments among native entrepreneurs from both inter-temporal and longitudinal perspectives. Contrary to expectations, the higher levels of socio-cultural integration of second-generation immigrants do not necessarily lead to better business prospects. The differences between the major ethnic groups of immigrants are noteworthy, as are those with non-immigrant entrepreneurs. While high levels of human capital and social integration foster entrepreneurial success, they are no guarantee of good business prospects.

The Future Demand for Industrial Sites in the Netherlands: Is Employment a Good Predictor?

Beckers P. and Schuur J. The future demand for industrial sites in the Netherlands: is employment a good predictor, Regional Studies. Popular forecasting models for long-term planning of industrial sites assume a strong linear relationship between employment and land use. New Dutch panel data for 1997–2008 were used to test this assumption. In a linear model, employment alone does not suffice to predict land use. Non-linear models show a relationship at municipal and industrial sites level, but not for regions. However, the relationship is strongly biased by unobserved heterogeneity. For planning purposes and prediction, additional explanatory variables are necessary to tackle this problem. The findings do not support the use of simple linear models for the planning of industrial sites.

Open to business? An exploration of the impact of the built environment and zoning plans on local businesses in pre-war and post-war residential neighbourhoods in Dutch cities

Urban residential neighbourhoods, including migrant neighbourhoods, have become important incubation zones for small businesses in recent years and policy-makers and academics alike are wondering which local factors affect this development. This paper analyses the extent to which migrant neighbourhood characteristics related to the built environment and the local regulations matter in determining the possibilities for small businesses. It contrasts two types of neighbourhood in the Netherlands—pre-war neighbourhoods with little functional separation between residential and commercial purposes, and post-war predominantly mono-functional residential neighbourhoods. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are combined using available firm data from trade registers of the Dutch chambers of commerce, reviewing neighbourhood zoning regulations and conducting focus group and individual interviews with neighbourhood experts and entrepreneurs. It is found that the built and regulatory environment of migrant neighbourhoods does indeed appear to impact significantly on the chances of setting up a business and its subsequent fate.

The impact of planning intervention on business development: Evidence from the Netherlands:

There has been a growing research interest in measuring the impact of planning and land-use regulations on housing market outcomes, but parallel development of the evidence base for the business sector has yet to occur. This article examines the impact of planning intervention on the amount of building investment taking place at sites allocated for industrial and business development. Measures that capture different dimensions of planning intervention are incorporated into models of industrial building investment. The models are estimated using a novel micro dataset on permit activity that covers a sample of industrial and business sites in the Netherlands. The results provide evidence of some of the expected negative effects of the regulatory role of planning intervention, but also show that proactive, targeted planning policies exert a significant and positive influence on investment activity. Specifically, policy-induced improvements to the physical environment will stimulate both new construction and refurbishment activity.

Residential choices of foreign highly skilled workers in the Netherlands and the role of neighbourhood and urban regional characteristics

In the international competition for talent, local and national policy makers are keen to better understand the location choices of highly skilled workers in order to design more effective policies geared towards the group’s attraction and retention. In this study, we explain whether and to what extent the local living environment, in particular characteristics at the neighbourhood and urban regional level, affect the residential choices of foreign highly skilled workers. We make use of register data from Statistics Netherlands on the residential locations of all of these migrants who entered the Netherlands between 2000 and 2009. We combine this dataset with data on relevant characteristics at the neighbourhood level as well as with relevant amenities and labour market characteristics at the regional level. We estimate a negative binomial regression model to test which characteristics of neighbourhoods and urban regions are associated with high inflows of foreign highly skilled workers at the neighbourhood level. We find that, besides labour market characteristics, the characteristics of the local environment do matter for location choices of foreign highly skilled workers in the Netherlands. This group tends to settle in higher income, inner city neighbourhoods that offer a high degree of urban vibe. Furthermore, residential choices differ between single and multi-person households and change with duration of stay in the country.

Neighbourhood spatial order, the local economy and firm mobility in urban areas of the Netherlands

Urban residential neighbourhoods in the Netherlands increasingly function as incubation zones for small-scale businesses. Despite this development, little is known about whether and how the local production environment in these neighbourhoods shapes firm mobility behaviour. This article studies how two aspects of the local production environment — the built neighbourhood environment and zoning regulations — affect firm mobility of small-scale businesses in urban residential neighbourhoods. To achieve this aim, we contrast two sets of urban neighbourhoods, pre- and post-second world war neighbourhoods with a comparable low socio-economic profile, but with distinct built environments and zoning regulations. We combine quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse available trade register data from the Dutch regional Chambers of Commerce, study neighbourhood zoning regulations, and conduct focus-group and individual interviews with neighbourhood experts and entrepreneurs. The local built environment and its regulations appear to have a small but significant effect on the firm mobility behaviour of entrepreneurs in the neighbourhoods studied. Relocation intentions are higher among entrepreneurs in post-war than in pre-war neighbourhoods, which may (in part) be attributed to less favourable local institutional settings for businesses, but actual firm mobility does not differ between these neighbourhoods.