Hospitals, employees and parking

We study the employees' demand for hospital parking. We estimate the effect of the employees' parking price on demand using a difference-in-differences methodology. The deadweight loss generated by non-optimal pricing of parking is at least 9% of the hospitals' parking resource costs

Interaction of regional population and employment

We investigate the interaction of regional population and employment in a simu1taneousmodel, allowing for interregional commuting. The proposed dynamic specificationdistinguishes between short-run and equilibrium adjustment effects and it encompassesthe lagged-adjustment specification that is standard in the literature. We interpret thelong-run relationship between levels of population and employment as a labour marketequilibrium. The model is estimated on a panel of 1973-2000 annual data for 40regions in The Netherlands, controlling for region and time-specific heterogeneity.Identification of the model is improved by decomposing population growth into netinterregional migration and exogenous natural popu1ation developments. We find thatemployment growth responds quite strongly to deviations from regional labour marketequilibria. Net migration is dominated by housing market developments and in the shortrun on1y slightly affected by increases in regional employment. The main implication isthat equilibrium on regional labour markets is obtained through adjustment ofemployment instead of population. We test and reject the lagged-adjustmentspecification

The (hidden) cost of employer parking policies

It has been argued that urban planning policies, through minimum parking requirements, and income tax policies induce free employer parking. We show that tax policies induce welfare losses in the order of 12% of parking resource costs, implying an annual deadweight loss in the order of € 5 billion for Europe. In the US, due to the presence of minimum parking requirements, the deadweight loss of policy is even higher and in the order of $ 30 billion

Sequential or non-sequential recruitment?

This paper examines the recruitment process of firms. We test whether firms search sequentially or non-sequentially using data compiled from filled vacancies. According to theory, in case of sequential hiring, the number of applicants is proportional to the number of employees hired, whereas in case of non-sequential hiring, the number of applicants increases by less. We distinguish between different types of recruitment methods. We find that the sequential hiring is rejected for a number of methods (including advertisements) covering almost half of the vacancies, and the large majority of the job applications by job seekers. Informal recruitment methods tend to imply sequential search

Identification of 'Wasteful Commuting' using Search Theory

In this paper, we employ search theory as a micro-economic foundation for the wasteful commuting hypothesis. It is argued that the commute of the self-employed is the result of a search process for vacant workplaces, whereas employees search for vacant jobs through space. Because the arrival rate of workplaces is much higher than the arrival rate of jobs, the self-employed essentially may minimise the commute, whereas employees accept jobs with a longer commute. In the empirical analysis, the extent of the ‘wasteful commuting’ is identified by estimating the difference in the commute of employees and self-employed individuals with fixed workplaces. Our estimates indicate that about 40 to 50% of the observed commute may be considered ‘wasteful’ due to job search imperfections. We reject alternative hypotheses why the self-employed have a shorter commute (self-selection of not working from home, different residence locations). In line with the theoretical model, the excess commute is shown to be less in areas with a higher urban density