The Future Demand for Industrial Sites in the Netherlands: Is Employment a Good Predictor?

The future demand for industrial sites in the Netherlands: is employment a good predictor, Regional Studies. Popular forecasting models for long-term planning of industrial sites assume a strong linear relationship between employment and land use. New Dutch panel data on the 1997–2008 period were used to test this assumption. In a linear model, employment alone does not suffice to predict land use.

Non-linear models show a relationship on municipal and industrial site levels, but not on a regional level. However, the relationship is strongly biased by unobserved heterogeneity. For planning purposes and projections, additional explanatory variables are needed to tackle this problem. The findings in this study do not support the use of simple linear models for the planning of industrial sites.

Authors

Pascal Beckers, Jan Schuur

Specifications

Publication title
The Future Demand for Industrial Sites in the Netherlands: Is Employment a Good Predictor?
Publication date
8 November 2013
Publication type
Publicatie
Magazine
Regional Studies
Product number
1280