The EMS in the province of Gelderland consists of
• an (inter-) national urban network: the junction Arnhem-Nijmegen;
• urban networks (with interprovincial aspects): urban triangle (Apeldoorn, Deventer,
Zutphen) and WERV (Wageningen, Ede, Rhenen, Veenendaal);
• regional centres/formation of networks: Doetinchem and environs, Tiel and
environs, Harderwijk and environs. (GS Gelderland, 2004).
In the province of Gelderland, the share of all establishments located in the EMS was
constant in the period 1986-1996 (37 percent), and sligthly increased afterwards to 39
percent in 2002.
Closures
If a firm exists in year t, and no longer in year t+1, it is considered a closure during year
t. In our dataset we also have information on the reason of disappearance of that firm
from the dataset. If a firm no longer exists because it merged with another firm, it is not
considered a closure. The same is true for firms that moved to either outside the
province or abroad. All other reasons (owner-related, bankruptcy, reorganization,
financial, or administrative) are considered to be real closures. The number of firms,
disappearing from the dataset and not seen as closures, as a percentage of all
disappearing firms, varies between zero and fifteen percent in the period 1986-2002.
In figure 2 the number of firms that closed down in the period 1986-2001 is shown, by
main type of activity. The total number of closures ranges between 1,051 in 1986 4and
6,430 in 1999.
Figure 2 Number of closures in Gelderland, by sector, 1986-2001
The trade sector has a relatively high share of all closures. Between 1986 and 1993
about half of all closures were firms performing activities in the trade sector. Afterwards
this share declined to 36 percent in 2001. Closures of firms in the services sector show a
reversed trend: 28 percent in 1986 to 41 percent in 2001 of all closing firms concerned
firms in the services sector.
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