Why has job growth over the past decades been weaker in the Dutch Randstad area than in surrounding regions? In a simultaneous equations analysis, we find that employment adjusts to the regional supply of labour. Net internal migration is predominantly determined by regional housing supply and...

According to economic theory, there are no strong reasons to tax (or to subsidise) residential moves, although low levels of taxation may be potentially justified to deal with the presence of externalities and economic stability. This is in contrast to practise in most countries where...

Why are regional unemployment differentials in Europe so persistent if, as the wage curve literature demonstrates, there is no compensation in labour markets? We hypothesize that workers in high-unemployment regions are compensated in housing markets. Modelling regional unemployment...

We study the economic effects of place-based policies in the housing market taking into account search frictions. Theory indicates that beneficial policies increase house prices, but temporarily reduce sales times of owner-occupied properties. We investigate both effects for a place-based...

We study neighbourhood externalities caused by large public investments in poor neighbourhoods. A stylised theory of a linear city is proposed to guide interpretation of the magnitude and attenuation of the external effects generated by these public investments. We use a large Dutch nationwide...

This paper investigates second-best congestion pricing in a monocentric city characterized by distortionary, rigid regulatory mechanisms in the housing market (building height restrictions, zoning and property taxation). The Pigouvian toll is shown to retain its optimality under any setting with...