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The demography of firms in the Netherlands: introduction to the 2003 maps
Author(s) -
Pellenbarg Piet H.,
Van Steen Paul J.M.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9663.00245
Subject(s) - friedmann–lemaître–robertson–walker metric , sociology , demography , history , physics , astrophysics , cosmology
Knowledge of the basics of demography is rather widespread. To be able to understand the growth or decline of a population and to predict its future development, one has to look at birth and death rates, and migration. For a deeper understanding, one also needs information about ages and rates of marriage, and the nature and duration of migrations. The same principles hold when the analysis of populations of firms is concerned instead of populations of people. A thorough explanation of regional economic growth or decline requires the availability and analysis of data on the components of regional economic change, i.e. entry and exit of firms, firm migration, and growth and decline of existing firms. Deeper understanding is possible by looking at mergers and acquisitions and by differentiating between short and long distance relocations of firms. Like in population demography, such analysis concerns both the understanding of actual situations and the possible prediction of future developments. Depending on the dominance of any of its components, regional economic development may have very different underlying causes and accordingly, regional economic problems may ask for very different remedies.