Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Economics - Case Scenarios, grade: A, Vrije University Brussel (Vesalius College), language: English, abstract: The Dutch empire had played a quite big role in the worlds politics and economics in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The Netherlands held a prospering empire with flourishing trade. With the beginning of the Industrialisation the Netherlands fell back in international competitiveness. The Dutch economy experienced a great boom 1945 after the second world war on the base of chemical and Electro-Industry. However the development of the Netherlands differed from most European countries. This essay intends to describe the Dutch economy during the 1990 to the millennium. What production of goods is it specialised on and how is this production process organised? Is this economy able to address the needs of the Dutch population or is there even a lack of some goods? The following report tries to find answers to these questions by highlighting specific attributes of the Dutch economy. By describing the development of the past decade it might be possible to give a brief forecast on the Netherlands’ level of prosperity for the forthcoming five years in the end of this essay. The Netherlands are located in the West of Europe. Compared to the rest of the world, the area of the Netherlands is relatively small with only 41 526 km2 , which means it takes ranks no. 132 in the world scale. Nevertheless the inhabitants are relatively numerous with 16.1 million people in 2002. This creates a high population density of 386 inhabitants per km2. As pointed out in the essay this fact creates a good market for the Dutch economy. The neighbours are Belgium in the South and Germany in the East. The North Sea is located on the Northwest coast of the country. The Dutch capital is the Amsterdam, while the seat of the government is located in the city of Den Haag. [...]