Spatial Perspectives on Firm Dynamics in The Netherlands

When superficially observed in a time sequence, regional economies grow, decline or stabilize. However, in either of such states the real level of regional economic dynamism may differ widely if we look at the components of growth or decline such as the birth and growth of new firms, firm migrations, and the decline and closure of firms. A thorough explanation of the dynamics of a regional economy requires the description and analysis of the components of change in populations of firms, just like the science of demography is looking for demographic trends in fertility, mobility and mortality in order to understand the real structure and causes of population change. To the analogy of population demography, such an approach in empirical research may be labeled as ‘demography of firms’. In the introductory article to this year’s series of ‘The Netherlands in Maps’ (Pellenbarg and Van Steen 2003) we described how the demography of firms approach developed within economic geography since the late 1970s, and how the new paradigm relates to comparable research approaches in sociology and economics. The aim of this article is to describe and comment the key characteristics of the spatial economic dynamism in the Netherlands in terms of the demography of firms approach. The maps of this year’s series will be taken as a starting point, as the five maps that were published in this volume of TESG show the regional variation within the Netherlands for five of the most crucial firm demographic components, i.e. new firms (Map 2003/1), firm closures (Map 2003/2), firm migrations (Map 2003/3), old firms (Map 2003/4) and growth and decline of firms (Map 2003/5).