Measuring Regional Economic Resilience across Europe: Operationalizing a complex concept

Abstract

This paper describes an approach developed to measure regional economic resilience across Europe which is novel in three key dimensions. Firstly, it seeks to date regional downturns as opposed to assuming that all regional economies are affected by economic shocks at the same point in time; secondly, it measures the amplitude and duration of economic downturns and subsequent recoveries; and thirdly, as well as measuring recovery, it measures the resistance of regional economies to economic shocks. The paper applies this methodology to selected European countries to provide an analysis of differential regional responses to several economic shocks since the early 1990s. The paper then reflects upon the utility of this methodology for operationalising regional economic resilience in crosscomparative studies. AbstractThis paper describes an approach developed to measure regional economic resilience across Europe which is novel in three key dimensions. Firstly, it seeks to date regional downturns as opposed to assuming that all regional economies are affected by economic shocks at the same point in time; secondly, it measures the amplitude and duration of economic downturns and subsequent recoveries; and thirdly, as well as measuring recovery, it measures the resistance of regional economies to economic shocks. The paper applies this methodology to selected European countries to provide an analysis of differential regional responses to several economic shocks since the early 1990s. The paper then reflects upon the utility of this methodology for operationalising regional economic resilience in crosscomparative studies.

Regional Economic and Social Resilience: An Exploratory In-Depth Study in the Nordic Countries

“…The 2008 financial crisis, for instance, emerged locally in the US as a result of a housing bubble and subprime mortgages, and spread internationally due to truly interdependent global financial institutions. Additional shocks that affect local (sub-national) economies are related to internal decision-making processes, for instance in the closure or relocation of key employers (Sensier et al, 2016. However, economic shocks at the local level can be symptomatic of long-term struggles in sustaining an economic path that perhaps was doomed to decline eventually.…”

“…Even when a region could preserve its main function, structure, identity and feedbacks, the 'ability to absorb' a shock requires a certain degree of reorganisation and change (Muštra et al, 2016). Recent literature describes regional economic resilience as highly complex and multi-dimensional (Sensier et al, 2016;Martin & Sunley, 2015. Contrary to the engineering-rooted notion that implies returning to a state of equilibrium, economic geographers advocate for an evolutionary and dynamic understanding of resilience (Sensier et al, 2016). The evolutionary approach rejects the idea that regional economies can be in a state of equilibrium, and instead envisions economic trajectories as being complex, non-linear and dynamic.…”

“…Evolutionary economic geographers also emphasise the place-based and path-dependent aspects of regional economies. They argue that specific contextual features of regions play a role in their economic performance, while at the same time decisions made in the past will continue to influence regional development in the future (Sensier et al, 2016).…”

Making sense of leadership in urban and regional development

“…Relatedly, universities as drivers of regional change have been studied extensively (Acosta, Azagra-Caro, & Coronado, 2016) but only few contributions have scrutinized modes of leadership in this context (Goddard & Vallance, 2013;Goddard, Hazelkorn, Kempton, & Vallance, 2016). Importantly, also the concept of resilience has started attracting increasing interest in studies and policy discourses around regional development, as it offers an analytical lens to integrate social, economic and ecological issues for investigation of how regions may cope with external stress by improving regional capacity to act (Bristow, 2010;Courvisanos, Jain, & Mardaneh, 2016;Dubé & Polèse, 2015;Martin, Sunley, Gardiner, & Tyler, 2016;Sensier, Bristow, & Healy, 2016). Consequently, place leadership might serve well the emerging body of research on sustainable and resilient regions, as it might provide additional analytical leverage on one of the core questions of resilience: 'what kind of regional capacity is needed to adapt to a changing environment, not like driftwood in a stream, but with purpose' (Sotarauta & Mustikkamäki, 2012, p. 190).…”

Measuring flood resilience: a fuzzy logic approach

“…Although there have been attempts to measure resilience, most of the reported works in the literature have been in the context of ecological resilience, social resilience, social-ecological resilience, and economic resilience (Cumming, et al 2005) (Van Nes and Scheffer 2007) (Sensier, Bristow and Healy 2016), other are adolescent and health resilience (Ahern, et al 2006) (Mallak 1998) (Naglieri, LeBuffe and Ross 2013) with the literature sparse on the measurement of flood resilience (Kotze and Reyers 2016) (Birgani and Yazdandoost 2016) especially at property level.…”