Spatial, Transport and Environmental Economics

Department of Regional Economics
Co-ordinator: Professor P. Rietveld
E-mail p.rietveld@vu.nl

Summary
The research programme on spatial, transport and environmental economics four interrelated themes from an economic perspective: spatial dynamics, land use, transport and the environment.

• Spatial dynamics. The research focuses on the role of knowledge creation and knowledge spill-overs in the development of regions. Also, institutional differences between regions and their contribution to regional and national growth and trade will be analysed. Of special relevance are the functioning of urban land labour and housing markets, and their interrelationships.
• Land use. Spatial dynamics have immediate consequences for land use in urban and rural areas (and beyond). Issues such as the realisation of agglomeration benefits (positive externalities) and degradation of quality of landscapes by fragmentation and reduction of open space (negative externalities) will be addressed. Special attention will be paid to various operationalisations of ‘multifunctional land use' as a means to accommodate for these externalities.
• Transport. Problems of congestion and reliability in transport networks imply negative externalities that lead to various sub-optimal outcomes. The contributions of pricing strategies, public or private supply of infrastructure and information provision to reduce congestion and uncertainty will be analyzed. Given various limitations also the relative performance of second best instruments will be investigated.
• Environmental economics. This research theme addresses economic aspects of environmental problems, environmmental policy and sustainable development. The research on sustainable development concerns innovations for and transition to sustainable systems (notably energy and transport), construction of sustainability indicators, and use of non-renewable resources. Methods used include dynamic optimization, econometics and evolutionary modelling.

[Click here to download the full programme description (.pdf)]