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Reshaping the relationships between Western Europe and the former communist bloc is one of the most intriguing challenges for the coming years. Will Central and Eastern Europe become passive players in the European and world economy, or will companies located there become integrated as fully fledged partners? Foreign direct investment (FDI) is heavily concentrated in a few countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It is argued that the type of FDI is more important than the amount of FDI. There is a need for a critical assessment of the strategies of the investors and the impacts on local entrepreneurship. In this vein, the authors describe various interesting future research paths and make policy recommendations.

In this paper the spatial dimensions of technological developments are discussed. Special attention is given to entrepreneurship and the factors favouring the rise of new enterprises. A major component of such an incubator profile, the information infrastructure, is discussed more thoroughly (inter alia on the basis of a cross-national comparison). Last, the implications for regional policy and technology policy are spelt out.

Spatial decisions and processes are fundamental to the understanding of spatial structure. In the earlier stages of spatial analysis proposed explanations were typically on the aggregate, phenomenological level. Now a new field has evolved and matured which calls for a deeper understanding of spatial structure with a particular emphasis on spatial decisions and processes. The present volume serves as a guide and as an anthology by discussing a wide variety of new modelling approaches, techniques and issues related to spatial decision and processes and drawing these seemingly disparate, but in

Economics; Transport; Technology - De serie 'Voorstudies en achtergronden' omvat werkstukken die in het kader van de werkzaamheden van de WRR tot stand zijn gekomen en naar zijn oordeel van zodanige kwaliteit en betekenis zijn, dat publicatie gewenst is. De verantwoordelijkheid voor de inhoud en de ingenomen standpunten berust bij de auteurs.

This paper is focused on the intersection of two main policy 'tracks' followed in the Netherlands for the containment of road transport externalities: transport plans at the firm level, and regulatory parking policies. In this paper an applied modelling approach is taken, and the aim is to identify the relative importance of factors that are decisive for the viability of an individual firm's parking policies. The outcomes of an empirical survey conducted at the corporate level of the Free University in Amsterdam are used to discuss the social feasibility of regulatory parking policies conducted at the firm level (in terms of the employees' attitudes) and the effectiveness of such policies. Insight is provided into relevant backgrounds and obstacles serving to affect employees' commuting behaviour and that are likely to be encountered in the formulation of regulatory transport policies at the firm level. Moreover, the outcomes of this research may be relevant for the evaluation of regulatory parking policies at larger spatial scales (for example, neighbourhood parking schemes).

In this paper, the major frictions that the twelve countries of the European Community face with regard to elderly care are enumerated and explained. The impact these frictions may have are briefly sketched as well as the type of innovations prompted, in part, by these frictions. Von Hippel's view on the emergence of innovation is being used to point out how Schumpeter's notion of 'creative destruction' can potentially enrich the European domain of public-services planning for the aged in the future.

In the paper the authors outline the framework for research on transport, communications, and mobility, which underlies the network strategy currently being undertaken by the eighteen member countries of the European Science Foundation. They highlight the need for greater emphasis to be given, by policymakers throughout Europe as a whole, to the broader social and economic consequences of current trends in the field, and suggest that joint endeavour in this field is of paramount importance in order to exploit the research potential of the European countries.