On Wednesday, March 19, the Housing Lab was launched during the symposium “Investeren in Volkhuisvesting” (Dutch spoken), organized by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (Centraal Planbureau). The Housing Lab is an initiative by Vrije Universiteit researchers Hans Koster and Jan Rouwendal. Bundling Research Hans Koster, Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate at…

Erik Verhoef, professor at the department of Spatial Economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, is an expert in influencing travel behaviour through price incentives. ‘We need to collaborate in both science and practice to distribute and utilize scarce space fairly and effectively.’ It is not an easy task and it requires patience, but it is possible,…

Between 2016 and 2023 temporary rental contracts were allowed in the Netherlands. The maximum duration of stay under such a contract was two years. The purpose of introducing such contracts was to improve the functioning of the housing market. What have been the effects of these contracts? That is the question that Maureen Lankhuizen and…

Why is it easier to find a job that matches your skills in a city than elsewhere? Because there are more jobs available of course, but maybe also because there are disproportionally more vacancies available per worker, which makes it easier to move from one job to another. In their paper on ‘Are urban labour markets more dynamic?…

“Our research should ultimately become obsolete,” says VU Amsterdam scientist Gerard van der Meijden. Alongside Cees Withagen and two fellow researchers, he studied carbon capture, utilisation and storage — technologies crucial for the energy transition. Which scenario leads to the optimal balance between societal benefits and losses? Gerard, an associate professor of environmental economics, begins…

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…