We study how the (dis)similarity in the quality of human capital resources (HCR) between acquirers and potential targets influences the choice of which firm to acquire. Specifically, we assess under which conditions acquirers prefer dissimilar over similar targets. Based on an analysis of domestic acquisitions between professional service firms in the Netherlands we find that the distance in the quality of HCR between acquirer and a potential target, proxied by the absolute difference in average wages, lowers the probability of target selection, revealing the acquirer's general preference for similarity. This preference is greatly influenced, however, by the acquirer's ability to attract and retain employees. The ability to attract and retain employees shifts acquirers' preferences towards higher quality targets and away from lower quality targets. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for the mergers and acquisitions literature as well as the human resource literature.

Across Europe, refugees face significant difficulties in finding employment. Many studies have attributed the disadvantaged labor market position of refugees to factors on the individual level, such as language barriers or health issues related to the experience of fleeing. While such explanations emphasize individual responsibility, ethnographic studies are increasingly contending that opportunities to integrate into the labor market can be restricted or enabled by arrival infrastructures. We contribute to this discussion by taking a quantitative perspective. Focusing on the Netherlands, we used extensive national register data that allowed us to follow refugees over time and break the concept of arrival infrastructures down into four dimensions, namely job access, neighborhood effects, enclave effects, and the local migration regime. In addition, because the Dutch dispersal policy distributed refugees - to a considerable extent - randomly across municipalities during the period under study, we were able to counteract problems of self-selection and reversed causality. We studied the labor market integration of refugees using competing risks analysis, taking educational enrollment and residential mobility into account. Our findings show that economic, social, and institutional arrival infrastructures manifest themselves at different scales but all matter in the labor market integration of refugees.

This paper combines an input–output model and a novel regional labour market matching model in order to identify potential bottlenecks in regional labour markets resulting from shocks in demand caused by the energy transition. Identifying these bottlenecks provides relevant information for policymakers to determine in which regions and industries policy intervention in labour markets may be needed to ensure a smooth transformation. We analyse the effects of a shock that is illustrative for the energy transition in the Netherlands. Our results indicate that the aim of the Dutch government to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions may, at least in the short run, be hampered by bottlenecks in labour markets.

•Cleantech knowledge production is more likely to develop in regions with a technologically related knowledge base.•Fossil fuel technology specialisations neither hindered nor stimulated cleantech knowledge production in European regions.•Some fossil fuel technologies are technologically related to cleantech, thereby being a knowledge input for cleantech development.•Some organisations with prior patenting activity in fossil fuel technologies are involved in the diversification into cleantech.•We observe a heterogenous socio-technical regime concept which facilitates new technology developments in some dimensions but hinders it in others.

This chapter focuses on how to empirically observe the re-orientation dimension of resilience and test its relationship to a region's ability to resist or recover from a shock. The chapter defines re-orientation as the reallocation over time of productive resources across regions and industries, and develops a tool for its measurement which is based on a region's ability to match unemployed workers with firms with job vacancies. Using the example of the Netherlands, the analysis shows that re-orientation is an essential feature of the adaptation process of a regional economy and that under shocks and also episodes of employment growth, regions undergo more re-orientation than they normally do. It also finds that the recovery of regions is affected by the region's options for re-orientation as shaped by its inter-sectoral and inter-regional labour mobility.

The choice of acquisition target is known to be home biased, since acquirers prefer targets located close to them. It is less known how geographic distance influences, indirectly, the acquirers’ preferences towards other dimensions of resource value in potential targets. Using matched employer-employees data for all acquisitions in professional services firms in the Netherlands in 2006-2012, we find that acquirers choose targets that are similar, rather than dissimilar, to them in quality of human resources, especially if distantly located. Our findings suggest that when human resources are an essential source of value, and when geographic distance enhances information asymmetries, organizational fit plays a greater role than strategic fit in acquisition target choice. Organizational and geographical proximities are thus interdependent and substitute in acquirers’ preferences.

Werkzekerheid is het vinden én behouden van werk, ook na verlies van een baan. Voor veel voormalig werklozen is werk vinden echter geen garantie voor het behoud van werk. Uit het Stelsel van Sociaal-statistische Bestanden (SSB) van het CBS zijn alle personen geselecteerd die vanuit een stabiele arbeidsmarktpositie tussen 2007 en 2009 de WW instroomden en binnen één jaar een nieuwe baan vonden. Een sequentieanalyse van de veranderingen in hun arbeidsmarktpositie in de vijf jaar na werkhervatting resulteerde in drie typen loopbaanvervolgen die duidelijk verschillen in werkzekerheid. Twee groepen zijn bijna continu werkzaam: 42% hoofdzakelijk in standaardbanen (vast contract voor meer dan 20 uur per week) en 15% hoofdzakelijk in niet-standaardbanen. De overige 43% heeft een zeer instabiel vervolg van de loopbaan waarbij kortdurende niet-standaardbanen worden afgewisseld met nieuwe perioden van werkloosheid. Multinomiale logistische regressieanalyse laat zien dat laagopgeleiden, voormalig werklozen met een migratie-achtergrond, ouderen en vrouwen een grotere kans hebben op zo'n instabiel loopbaanvervolg. Ook zit een deel van de voormalig werklozen vast in een patroon van niet-standaardbanen afgewisseld met werkloosheid: degenen met zo'n loopbaanontwikkeling waren vaak al eerder werkloos en hadden vooral tijdelijke banen op uitzend- of oproepbasis in hun eerdere loopbaan.

Labour mobility is often considered a crucial factor for regional development. However, labour mobility is not good per se for local firms. There is increasing evidence that labour recruited from skill-related industries has a positive effect on plant performance, in contrast to intra-industry labour recruits. However, little is known about which types of labour are recruited in different stages of the evolution of an industry, and whether that matters for plant performance. This paper attempts to fill these gaps in the literature using linked employee–employer data at the plant level for manufacturing and services industries in the Netherlands for the period 2001–2009. Our study focuses on the effects of different types of labour recruits on the survival of new plants. We show that the effects of labour recruits from the same industry and from skill-related and unrelated industries on plant survival vary between different stages of the evolution of an industry. We also find that inter-regional labour flows do not affect new plant survival. JEL classification: R11, R12, O18

The central question of this paper is: “What is the magnitude of different forms of employment dynamics on business estates in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2005 and to what extent are the employment dynamics on business estates different from employment dynamics in general?” In order to answer this question, we examine three kinds of local employment dynamics: (1) entries and exits, (2) inter-municipal relocation and (3) the growth/decline of existing firms. We find that new firm formation and inter-municipal relocation do not lead to employment growth on business estates. However, the in situ employment growth on business estates is higher than the general employment growth in the Netherlands. Therefore, it can be concluded that business estates play an important role in local employment dynamics by facilitating the growth of incumbent firms.

Labour mobility is often considered a crucial factor for regional development. However, labour mobility is not good per se for local firms. There is increasing evidence that labour recruited from skill-related industries has a positive effect on plant performance, in contrast to intra-industry labour recruits. However, little is known about which types of labour are recruited in different stages of the evolution of an industry, and whether that matters for plant performance. This paper attempts to fill these gaps in the literature using plant-level data for manufacturing and services industries in the Netherlands for the period 2001-2009. Our study focuses on the effects of different types of labour recruits on the survival of new plants. We show that the effects of labour recruits from the same industry and from skill-related and unrelated industries on plant survival vary between the life cycle stages of industries. We also find that inter-regional labour flows do not impact on plant survival.

Urban-economic inequality is commonly considered to be increasing and a phenomenon that needs to be combatted. However, discussions about it are sometimes rather unsystematic, unsubstantiated and alarmist. This compromises policy effectiveness. In this paper we put forward a decision-making framework that can be used to provide structure to the discussion and to derive policy options from. It first deals with some definitional issues by distinguishing inequality from related but distinct concepts such as poverty, segregation and justice. In addition, it discusses measurement challenges. As investigating urban inequality is not value-free but can be approached from different angles, the paper elaborates on three alternative normative perspectives that relate (in)equality to (in)justice. The first considers economic inequality to be undesirable from an instrumental view: it impacts negatively on economic growth, social cohesion or other societal goals. The second argues that relative poverty (economic inequality) in itself (intrinsically) is irrelevant and not unjust but that the focus should be on absolute poverty. The third and final perspective takes issue with the material emphasis of one (relative poverty) and two (absolute poverty) and raises awareness for the importance of capabilities: people can do different things with the same amount of money because of their differences in capabilities. Each normative perspective leads to its own policy options within different policy categories (people-based/place-based and picking winners/saving 'losers'). Through providing conceptual rigour, illustrating the way concepts can be measured and distinguishing between competing normative perspectives, a policy menu is sketched.

To date, theoretical and empirical insights in the determinants of regional resilience are still limited. Using a model, we explore how three regional factors jointly contribute to the resilience of regional labour markets to economic shocks. The localization of the supply network (1) is used to model the propagation of the shock, while possibilities for intersectoral (2) and interregional labour mobility (3) to analyse the recovery. An application of the model to Dutch data suggests that labour markets in centrally located and service-oriented regions have, on average, a higher recovery speed, irrespective of the type of shock hitting the economy.