IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/docmnt/113.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional disparities in a small country? An analysis of regional unemployment and participation differentials in the Netherlands from 1975 to 2003

Author

Listed:
  • Wouter Vermeulen

Abstract

The existence of regional support programs presumes that labour markets in the Netherlands do not clear at the national, but at some local level. From a general equilibrium perspective, it is far from straightforward to identify the regional dimension of labour markets. This study argues that the size and persistence of regional unemployment and participation differentials are an appropriate indicator. We analyse regional unemployment and participation in the Netherlands from 1975 until 2003. Empirically, differences in inactivity do not seem to be a reliable indicator of the regional component of labour markets. Both from an international perspective, and in comparison to variation of labour market conditions over the business cycle, the regional dimension of labour markets appears to be small. However, it is relatively large for women, youths and the lower educated, which are the least mobile groups. It would be efficient to aim regional labour market programs at these groups, if such programs are desirable at all.

Suggested Citation

  • Wouter Vermeulen, 2006. "Regional disparities in a small country? An analysis of regional unemployment and participation differentials in the Netherlands from 1975 to 2003," CPB Document 113, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpb:docmnt:113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/download/doc113.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wouter Vermeulen & Jos Van Ommeren, 2004. "Interaction of Regional Population and Employment over Time: identifying short-run effects and equilibrium adjustment," ERSA conference papers ersa04p256, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Flinn, Christopher J & Heckman, James J, 1983. "Are Unemployment and Out of the Labor Force Behaviorally Distinct Labor Force States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 28-42, January.
    3. Decressin, Jorg & Fatas, Antonio, 1995. "Regional labor market dynamics in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1627-1655, December.
    4. O'Leary, Nigel C. & Murphy, Philip D. & Latreille, Paul L. & Blackaby, David H. & Sloane, Peter J., 2005. "Accounting for Differences in Labour Market Outcomes in Great Britain: A Regional Analysis Using the Labour Force Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 1501, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Lourens Broersma & Jouke van Dijk, 2002. "Regional labour market dynamics in the Netherlands," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 81(3), pages 343-364.
    6. Groot Wim & Mekkelholt Eddie & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 1992. "Further evidence on the wage curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 355-359, March.
    7. Henry G. Overman & Diego Puga, 2002. "Unemployment clusters across Europe's regions and countries [‘Regional evolutions’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(34), pages 115-148.
    8. Masahisa Fujita & Paul Krugman & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262561476, December.
    9. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    10. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 147-162, January.
    11. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107001411.
    12. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1), pages 1-76.
    13. David H. Autor & Mark G. Duggan, 2001. "The Rise in Disability Recipiency and the Decline in Unemployment," JCPR Working Papers 226, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    14. Hanson, Gordon H. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2002. "Labor-market adjustment in open economies: Evidence from US states," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 3-29, June.
    15. Adelheid Holl, 2004. "Start-ups and relocations: Manufacturing plant location in Portugal," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 649-668, October.
    16. Lambert Van Der Laan & Richard Schalke, 2001. "Reality versus Policy: The Delineation and Testing of Local Labour Market and Spatial Policy Areas," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 201-221, March.
    17. Frank Cörvers & Maud Hensen, 2003. "The regionalization of labour markets by modelling commuting behaviour," ERSA conference papers ersa03p199, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Wouter Vermeulen & Jos van Ommeren, 2004. "Interaction of Regional Population and Employment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-083/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. Christina Beatty & Stephen Fothergill, 2002. "Hidden Unemployment Among Men: A Case Study," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(8), pages 811-823.
    20. Paolo Mauro & Antonio Spilimbergo, 1999. "How Do the Skilled and the Unskilled Respond to Regional Shocks?: The Case of Spain," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 46(1), pages 1-1.
    21. Faini, Riccardo, 1999. "Trade unions and regional development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 457-474, February.
    22. Benati, Luca, 2001. "Some empirical evidence on the 'discouraged worker' effect," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 387-395, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wouter Vermeulen, 2006. "Regional disparities in a small country? An analysis of regional unemployment and participation differentials in the Netherlands from 1975 to 2003," CPB Document 113.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    2. Wouter Vermeulen, 2005. "Regional disparities in a small country? An assessment of the regional dimension to the Dutch labour market on the basis of regional unemployment and participation differentials," ERSA conference papers ersa05p207, European Regional Science Association.
    3. David C Maré & Wai Kin Choy, 2001. "Regional Labour Market Adjustment and the Movements of People: A Review," Treasury Working Paper Series 01/08, New Zealand Treasury.
    4. Wouter Vermeulen & J. van Ommeren, 2006. "Housing supply and the interaction of regional population and employment," CPB Discussion Paper 65, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Gordon H. Hanson, 2000. "Scale Economies and the Geographic Concentration of Industry," NBER Working Papers 8013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman & M. Rose Olfert & Ying Tan, 2015. "When Spatial Equilibrium Fails: Is Place-Based Policy Second Best?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1303-1325, August.
    7. Wouter Vermeulen & J. van Ommeren, 2006. "Compensation of regional unemployment in housing markets," CPB Discussion Paper 57, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    8. G Ottaviano & Diego Puga, 1997. "Agglomeration in a global Economy: A Survey," CEP Discussion Papers dp0356, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Pietro Garibaldi & Etienne Wasmer, 2005. "Equilibrium Search Unemployment, Endogenous Participation, And Labor Market Flows," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 851-882, June.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8921 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Robert Beyer & Michael Stemmer, 2015. "From progress to nightmare - European regional unemployment over time," DNB Working Papers 458, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    12. Christiane Krieger-Boden, 2002. "EMU and the Industrial Specialisation of European Regions," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura & Martí Parellada (ed.), Regional Convergence in the European Union, chapter 4, pages 77-94, Springer.
    13. Braunerhjelm, Pontus & Thulin, Per, 2005. "The trade-off between agglomeration forces and relative costs: EU versus the “world” Evidence from firm-level location data 1974-1998," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 30, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    14. Pontus Braunerhjelm & Per Thulin, 2009. "Agglomeration, Relative Wage Costs and Foreign Direct Investment—Evidence from Swedish MNCs 1974–1998," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 197-217, September.
    15. Gabor Kezdi, 2002. "The Geographic Mobility of Labor and the Rigidity of European Labor Markets," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0216, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    16. Jens Suedekum, 2005. "Increasing returns and spatial unemployment disparities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(2), pages 159-181, June.
    17. Puga, Diego, 1999. "The rise and fall of regional inequalities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 303-334, February.
    18. Hector Sala & Pedro Trivín, 2014. "Labour market dynamics in Spanish regions: evaluating asymmetries in troublesome times," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 197-221, August.
    19. Mion, Giordano, 2004. "Spatial externalities and empirical analysis: the case of Italy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 97-118, July.
    20. Sergei Guriev & Biagio Speciale & Michele Tuccio, 2019. "How do Regulated and Unregulated Labor Markets Respond to Shocks? Evidence from Immigrants During the Great Recession," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 37-76.
    21. Marcello Estevào, 2003. "Regional Labor Market Disparities in Belgium," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 95-114.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • R13 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpb:docmnt:113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpbgvnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.