Drug consumption rooms lead to a significant reduction in drug use and drug-related crime, as evidenced by research from VU Amsterdam professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate, Hans Koster, and Sofia Franco (University of California – Irvine). What’s also striking is that in neighbourhoods with these spaces, house prices increased by 2.5%. A consumption…

In economic terms, the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) is doing well. The rapid recovery after the COVID-19 crisis illustrated the resilience of the region. In 2021 and 2022, the economy grew by 7.5 and 6.9 percent, respectively. In 2023, growth slowed down to 1.2 percent, and in the coming years, the economy is expected…

Erik Verhoef is the new ambassador of the NWA Route Logistics and transport in an energetic, innovative and sustainable society (RLT from here on). RLT is one of the 25 routes within the Dutch Research Agenda (abbreviated as NWA).  Finding a way to transition to a sustainable mobility and logistics system by 2050 is the…

Jos van Ommeren has been awarded funding from The Dutch Research Council (NWO) as part of the Open Competition – SSH L.  Together with Hans Koster, Jos aims to investigate the effects of different policies on housing affordability. They will conduct a large-scale study into the affordability of housing and the effectiveness of various housing market policy measures…

Leon Bremer, Sacha den Nijs, and Henri de Groot recently published a paper on the energy efficiency gap in Energy Economics. In their research they show that firms in the Netherlands can still profitably save about 15% of their energy use by investing in energy efficiency. Even though firms have saved energy in the past,…

Congratulations Erik Verhoef! Together with Kenneth Small and Robin Lindsey, he finished a third edition of a seminal textbook on ‘The Economics of Urban Transportation’. This new edition incorporates the latest research affecting the design, implementation, pricing, and control of transport systems in towns and cities. The book offers an economic framework for understanding the…

On April 8, 2024, the kick-off meeting of research project ENHANCE took place at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. ENHANCE, short for ‘Enhancing Sustainable Travel in Small Cities and Outer Metropolitan Areas’, started in January 2024, and unites researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (lead), University College London, Birkbeck University of London, and Universidade Nova de Lisboa. In…

Congratulations Antonia Kurz! She had her first article on ‘Within-country leakage due to the exemption of small emitters from emissions pricing’ published in The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. More good news: Antonia accepted a six-year postdoc position at DIW Berlin as per September 2024. At DIW Berlin Antonia will pursue and lead innovative…

Good news for Michael König! His paper on “Endogenous Technology Spillovers in Dynamic R&D Networks” (co-authored by Chih-Sheng Hsieh and Xiaodong Liu) has been accepted for publication in the RAND Journal of Economics. The abstract is provided below. Abstract   We introduce a stochastic R&D network formation model where firms choose both R&D efforts and…

What would you do? Say you’re about to move, but your current home hasn’t sold yet. Do you opt for a low asking price, which means a quick sale at a low(er) but acceptable price? Or do you opt for a higher asking price and wait for higher bids? Hans Koster and Jan Rouwendal investigated…