Within my field of Human Geography this has been interesting as well. I can't comment much on the general socio-economic effects that the golden age had on the "average person" in The Netherlands, but, it had a huge effect on the landscape within the Netherlands.

The spice trade was a risky business in which one could make huge sums of money but equally easy loose large amounts of wealth (imagine shipa being lost to pirates or stormy weather). Therefore rich merchants were always looking to diversify their wealth as to limit their exposure to risk.

One of the ways the merchants did this, was by investing into real estate. Buying buildings an such was obviously very common but within the Netherlands there was another type of real estate that was particularly interesting: land reclamation. The Netherlands is known for its relation with the sea and more specifically for its tendency to reclaim land from the sea. These projects for land reclamation relied in rather large investments to build dikes (to keep the water out) and windmills (to pump water away).

By investing in these projects merchants effectively created new land that could then be cultivated. This land reclamation obviously helped increase the wealth of the Netherlands even more, by allowing for more export of mostly high quality products such as cheese.

Now, as far as the average person goes, I'm not sure what the effects were. Obviously the wealth created and land reclamation allowed for more work and increased employment opportunities but that mostly benefitted the rich merchants who put down original the investments. Farmers in that period were generally well-off as well and didn't cultivate cheap crops but focused on producing milk, cheese and meat. Yet those farmers are likely not representative of "the average citizen".

During the height of the VOC, it was considered the economic Golden Age for the Netherlands. The company was founded shortly after the split from Spain/Holy Roman Empire and the war that Philip II started to try to get them back. Because of the amount of money that the VOC brought in though, it's one of the reasons the Netherlands were able to make such a "clean" split from the HRE. It also helped the Philip II bankrupted Spain in this time frame as well.

Spices were almost always in huge demand in Europe in this time frame, so when the spice trade from SE Asia was set up, all of the spices were going through Dutch ports. So anyone who was also dealing through those same ports would likely have seen a boon. Because of the massive increase in supply of spices more people were able to afford what was previously seen as a luxury item (Salt and Pepper were common wedding gifts in the Middle Ages). There are a few rather shocking recipes that I have come across that call for ground pepper in CUPS, rather than teaspoons.

The VOC was also the first publicly traded company, with stock issued to anyone who was interested in investing in the company and had wide-ranging classes of persons involved (see: http://www.worldsoldestshare.com/ ). This was based on a Dutch concept called rederiji, where multiple interested parties all take part in contributing towards a common financial goal. Instead of 1 person taking a massive risk on a business venture, 20 people take a moderate risk and potentially all benefit.

The VOC was also founded as a unification measure, the spice trade had been going for some time and it was a group of maritime merchants that initially founded the VOC as a way to work together (and thus not tank each others price margins for the spices). The voyage ONE WAY from SE Asia was about a year, and would take months to travel to the various islands to fill the hold before taking another year to get back. At the height of the trade, the VOC had at least 1 ship coming into port almost every month, to the point that the pepper market almost completely fell apart (there would be mounds of peppercorns rotting on piers because supply was so much greater than demand).

I know more, I did several papers on the spice trade and the VOC, I find them SUPER fascinating.

Sources:

“The Dutch East India Company’s shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795” http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/das/voyages.

Boxer, C.R.. The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800. New York: Alfred A Knoff, Inc., 1970.

Crump, Thomas. “The Dutch East Indies Company – The First 100 Years.” Lecture, Gresham College, UK, 01/03/2006. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-dutch-east-indies-company-the-first-100-years

Parthesius, Robert. Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010.

Prak, Maarten. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2005.

Price, J.L. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century. New York: NY. St. Martin’s Press.

Tracy, J.D. (2008), The Founding of the Dutch Republic: War, Finance, and Politics in Holland 1572–1588, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Vries, Jan de and Ad van der Woude. The First Modern Economy. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1997.