Jan Rouwendal

In 2018, Amsterdam introduced the North-South Line (NZL), a metro connecting the city’s north and south via its historic centre. Using a spatially adjusted difference-in-differences approach, combined with hedonic modelling for the relevant submarkets, this study estimates the effects of accessibility improvements, measured as the change in the number of jobs reachable within a 30-minute trip, on housing prices, rents, social housing queues and housing density. Unlike most studies in this literature, which focus exclusively on transaction prices, we examine this broader set of outcomes, an approach of particular relevance in Amsterdam, where owner-occupied housing represents only around 30% of the total stock. We find modest housing market responses to the NZL around specific stations. Effects are strongest where accessibility improvements were most pronounced, but often small or statistically insignificant. While house prices show small capitalisation effects in some locations, private rents, social housing and housing density exhibit weak or largely insignificant changes.

This paper presents a spatial analysis approach to uncover a range of residential (re)development processes using a complete registration of individual building level developments. By analysing 30 million housing-stock mutations in the Dutch national building registry between 2012 and 2025, we provide a full account of national housing stock changes and their preferred locations. We find a net addition of nearly one million dwellings (+12% of housing stock), with three-quarters realised within the existing urban fabric. Replacement (demolition followed by new construction on the same parcel) accounts for a growing share of net additions over time, while new-build development declines slightly. High-density neighbourhoods, covering just 7% of Dutch land, host five times more replacements per square kilometre than low-density areas. Regression models reveal that neighbourhood-level housing growth correlates positively with higher social-rent shares, urban attractiveness, and heritage values, but negatively with land availability, indicating that scarcity incentivises densification. Effect sizes differ markedly across density categories and development processes. The influence of urban attractiveness, for example, becomes more salient in lower-density areas, where higher amenity levels can partially offset otherwise limited housing increase. The study contributes by: (1) providing a reproducible micro-scale method to detect residential development processes; (2) demonstrating that densification is a substantial and growing component of Dutch housing supply; and (3) investigating the association between neighbourhood characteristics and densification and the balance between densification and expansion. These insights support spatial strategies that blend targeted infill with selective outward growth to meet future housing demand.

On 1 July 2016, the Wet doorstroming huurmarkt (Rental Market Transition Act) was implemented in the Netherlands. This law made it possible to temporarily rent out a property for a maximum of two years. The law was created to promote flexibility in the rental market. In particular, better allocation of households was the goal. This paper empirically analyses the impact of temporary contracts by considering the frequency of short stays (up to 2 years). We investigate the changes in this frequency since 2016. We also consider possible implications of the introduction of temporary contracts for rents, residential mobility, and duration of vacancy. We quantify the benefits of short stays to landlords, which mirror the cost of tenants, in terms of higher rental revenues. We also find that residential mobility in the private rental market increased significantly after temporary contracts were allowed, not only in the first 24 months of stay, but overall, as intended by the law.

This article analyzes the role of production factor land in the production process. Using a novel dataset of 20,205 newly established firms in the Chinese manufacturing sector from 2007 to 2014, our production function estimates suggest the existence of a sizable gap (averaging 50 USD/m²) between the marginal productivity of land and its user cost. Basic economic theory suggests a possible relationship with China’s minimum investment intensity (MII) regulation. An analysis using changes in MII limits over time and the resulting discontinuities at county borders confirms that larger gaps are significantly associated with increases in MII limits. Thus, the results of this study suggest that MII regulation leads to allocative inefficiency of land.

Studies investigating the role of single-parent families in adolescent delinquency have seldom differentiated between types of single-parent families. Furthermore, they have typically assumed that parental disruption is a discrete event marking an abrupt change between dual-parenthood and single-parenthood. Using Dutch longitudinal population register data, we estimated fixed-effects panel models to assess (1) whether the event of parental disruption, either by parental separation or by parental death, increases subsequent adolescent delinquency and (2) whether parental disruption, either by parental separation or by parental death, has anticipatory, immediate, or delayed effects on adolescent delinquency. Our results showed that both parental separation and parental death seem to boost adolescent delinquency, and we found no difference between these types of single-parent families. However, when distinguishing between anticipatory, short-term, and long-term effects, we found a short-term increase in adolescent delinquency after a parental separation and an anticipatory reduction in adolescent delinquency before a parental death. Future research should pay more attention to diversity in the composition of single-parent families, as well as to the anticipatory, short-term, and long-term consequences.

During the Global Financial Crisis, house prices sharply declined in all West‐European countries, but after an initial recovery the Dutch housing market experienced a second dip. This paper examines whether the introduction of the tightened Code of Conduct for Mortgage Loans in 2011 had an effect on Dutch house prices. We compare the evolution of Dutch house prices with a synthetic control of other European countries. Our results suggest that the introduction of the new Code of Conduct did indeed have a substantial negative effect on Dutch house prices in the 2 years following its introduction. Several robustness checks confirm this conclusion.

Residential mobility varies with age. In contrast to younger age groups, older adults show a tendency to ‘stay put’. There is little evidence whether this immobility of older adults is due to choice (i.e., the wish to age in place) or to constraint (i.e., the lack of alternatives). This study makes an empirical analysis of the underlying preferences for housing of Dutch older adults by reporting the stated preferences of Dutch older adults for bundles of housing characteristics. It offers insight in the relative importance of various aspects of housing and explores whether these preferences are stable for different age groups. The study finds a strong preference for the current dwelling, especially for the older age groups. Running separate models for different age groups results in an improvement of the log‐likelihood, indicating the presence of heterogeneity in housing preferences among Dutch older adults.

Addressing a gap in the extant literature on single-parent families and juvenile delinquency, we distinguish between different types of single-parent families. Using Dutch population register data on nearly 1.3 million children, we performed logistic regressions to assess the relation between growing up in a single-parent family before age 12 and the likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency during adolescence. Our findings suggest that the likelihood of juvenile delinquency increases (1) when children are born to a single parent, followed by children with separated parents and children experiencing parental death, compared to children growing up with both biological parents; (2) when the single-parent family started at a younger age; and (3) when children grow up with only a biological mother, for both sons and daughters, compared to only a biological father. The relationship between growing up in single-parent families and juvenile delinquency is much more complex than often assumed. Future research should pay more attention to diversity in the composition of single-parent families.