Sierdjan Koster

Population change and new firm formation in urban and rural regions

Delfmann H., Koster S., McCann P. and van Dijk J. Population change and new firm formation in urban and rural regions, Regional Studies. Many regions across the European Union, including regions in the Netherlands, face population decline, entailing changing demographics and related social and economic implications. This paper looks into the connection between population change and structure, and rates of new firm formation. Although it is clear that fewer people will eventually lead to fewer firms, as well as fewer new firms, it is assessed whether this negative relationship differs with the intensity of population change and across regional contexts. In order to establish the impact of population change on new firm formation, this paper examines data on population density, size, growth and decline, together with firm dynamics for the period 2003–09. The results show that the relationship between new firm formation and population change depends heavily on the regional context. The results indicate that new firm formation in urban regions tends to be negatively influenced by population change, while the impact in rural regions remains positive. In conclusion, clear differences are found in the intensity of the impact of population change on new firm formation according to the type of region. The regional context and the intensity of decline must be taken into account when determining the kind of coping mechanism needed to deal with the consequences of decline.

Creative economy policy in developing countries: The case of Indonesia

This paper investigates how the creative economy discourse is interpreted and implemented in the context of Indonesia as a developing country. Our main conclusion is that the discourse is interpreted differently across localities. Bandung appears to be the only locality whose interpretation aligns with the general understanding of a creative economy that emphasises knowledge creation and innovation. This was made possible by the strong support from academia and communities who wanted to experiment with this policy idea. Our study also provides an insight into a creative economy developing not only as a discourse, but also as a workable framework for development policies, in this city. Conversely, other cities seem to pragmatically use the policy idea without considering the local context in a rebranding exercise in order to drive economic development, whereby traditional cultural industries are relabelled as creative despite performing hardly any innovation activities. Despite this, Bandung illustrates that there are possibilities for a developing country such as Indonesia to adopt the vision of a creative economy by reshaping local institutions to support successful experimentation with this new idea.

Side-activity entrepreneur: lifestyle or economically oriented?

Regional economic development has experienced considerable dynamism over recent years. Perhaps the most notable cases were the rise of China and India to emergent country status by the turn of the millennium. With time now for hindsight, this book identifies some of the key forces behind these development successes, namely agglomeration, clusters and entrepreneurship.

Moving Shop: Residential and Business Relocation by the Highly Educated Self-employed

Abstract This study addresses the locational puzzle concerning the optimization of firm and residential locations faced by highly educated self-employed entrepreneurs. In contrast to employees, the self-employed have considerable leverage in changing their firm location, which gives them an additional option—apart from a residential move—to resolve household locational issues. Two results stand out. First, firms are generally located very close to the residential location. This reinforces the idea that entrepreneurship is a local event. Second, if other economic activities need to be considered, firm relocation is often used to resolve the locational puzzle.

New firm formation and economic development in a globalizing economy

This paper provides an overview of how globalization can impact on new firm formation and its consequence on regional economic development. Although there is a large body of research on new firm formation, the economic context in which new firm formation takes place has received considerably less attention. Globalization, changes conditions for new firm formation and it may change the role of new firm formation in economic development. The main conclusion of this review is that there is very little concrete understanding about if and how globalization actually impacts on new firm formation. Thus, the conclusion of this paper is probably best read as suggestions for research that addresses the issue of new firm formation in a globalizing economy. We distinguish two main avenues for research. The first avenue is on the firm level and is concerned with the issue to what extent new firms are actually influenced by globalization. The second avenue is on the regional level and addresses the question if and how globalization will impact on the regional distribution of new firm formation. Although globalization may open up the world market for many regions, it is uncertain whether this will lead to a reshuffle of economic development, for example governed by developments in new firm formation. Competition is fierce and it is a question of which regions are ready to take the opportunities that globalization offers.

Transitions and Location Choice: Analysing the Decisions of Students and Recent Graduates

Abstract This special issue is the result of a series of sessions on graduates and the labour market, organised at the 2012 ERSA conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. The collection of papers is the first to address determinants and impact of decisions on both entry and exit from higher education, with a focus on the location and labour market decisions of students and recent graduates. The first two papers in this issue present novel analyses of the transition from high school to tertiary education; Suhonen on distance and field of study in Finland; and Faggian and Franklin on student quality and location choice in the USA. The following two articles focus on the migration patterns of recent graduates; Ahlin, Andersson and Thulin focus on the rewards of entering labour markets in urban areas, while Carree and Kronenberg focus on the issue of residential location choice. Koster and Venhorst conclude by studying the residential and business location decisions of graduate entrepreneurs. The papers provide policy implications on the geographical spread of higher education institutions and the short- and long-term consequences of student and graduate mobility.

Knowledge Transfer between SMEs and Higher Education Institutions Differences between Universities and Colleges of Higher Education in the Netherlands

Knowledge transfer (KT) between higher education institutions (HEIs) and businesses is seen as a key element of innovation in knowledge-driven economies: HEIs generate knowledge that can be adopted in the regional economy. This process of valorization has been studied extensively, mainly with a focus on universities. In the Netherlands, there is a binary system of higher education comprising universities and the more practice-oriented colleges of higher education. From 2001 these colleges have played an increasingly important role in KT, which gives rise to the question of whether there are differences in the frequency and structure of KT involving universities and KT involving colleges. Colleges appear easier to access for SMEs, because of their focus on business practices. The interactions between universities and SMEs are more localized, suggesting the need for face-to-face interactions in those contacts. Furthermore, the results reiterate the importance of the absorptive capacity of firms and previously established contacts of entrepreneurs in explaining firm–HEI interaction.

Spatial Heterogeneity in Amenity and Labor Market Migration

The disequilibrium and equilibrium models of migration disagree on how local amenities and labor market dynamics influence regional in-migration. Research into migration motives and decision-making show that migration for some individuals is mainly driven by proximity to the labor market, while migration for others is mainly amenity driven. As this is an ongoing process, it should result in a spatial sorting based on migration motives. This means that global models explaining in-migration underestimate the influence of both factors through averaging out of the coefficients across these diverse regions. In this article, we compare a local and a global model explaining in-migration through residential quality and labor market proximity. We find significant differences in the influence of the explanatory variables between regions. Demonstrating this spatial heterogeneity shows that the impacts of factors underpinning migration vary across regions. This result highlights the importance of the regional context in anticipating and designing regional policy concerning population dynamics.

Employment Growth and Inter-industry Job Reallocation : Spatial Patterns and Relatedness

ABSTRACT Employment growth and inter-industry job reallocation: spatial patterns and relatedness. Regional Studies. The nature of employment reallocation between industries is assessed using rich register data for the Netherlands. It is found that employment decline in some industries is countered, in a communicating vessels fashion, by employment growth in other industries, which is primarily driven by the availability of released skilled labour. These labour demand interactions are predominantly local and stronger between related industries. In addition, the inter-industry labour reallocation has a distinct geographical character in which the location of employment creation depends primarily on the residential location of the released employees rather than on the location of the job destruction.

Motives for starting up a side activity in rural areas in the Netherlands

This paper explores the side activities of non-farmers in rural areas in the Netherlands and more specifically their start up motives. A side activity is a small-scale home-based activity, which provides a supplementary income to the household. Side activities may have the potential to diversify the economic base of rural areas and to contribute to the quality of life and the social well-being in rural communities. Yet, little is known about their role for the development of rural areas. Furthermore, to date, rural policies have largely neglected non-farmers’ side activities in their rural development strategies partly because of their small size and partly because of the lack of available data in business registers. This study, by exploring the side activity motives, brings to light the specific needs and aspirations of the owners and is based on the results of 260 interviews by side-activity owners. The results highlight that the owners are mainly oriented towards non-economic benefits corresponding to the individuals’ needs, dreams and desires, while financial betterment falls into a secondary place. People are in search of a different type of pay-off than economic rewards, namely the opportunity for a better quality lifestyle. This is relevant for policy makers because of the potential contribution of side activities to providing services, diversifying rural activities and adding to the resilience of rural communities.