Recessions, recoveries and regional resilience: evidence on Italy

Abstract

This paper analyses regional resilience and local economic growth patterns in Italy over the past four decades. Place-specific transient and permanent effects of aggregate employment shocks are studied. Geographical asymmetries in engineering and ecological resilience are found, providing auxiliary insights on the rooted Italian regional inequalities. The territorial impact of different crises is investigated and a direct comparison with the UK case is offered. The importance of manufacturing activities for explaining economic resilience is assessed, finding out a positive relation between the resilience of the industrial sector and the overall local economic development. Some policy implications are conclusively discussed.

Regional resilience in Italy: do employment and income tell the same story?

“…income and employment. Indeed, as mentioned earlier in this paper, the results obtained by both Cellini and Torrisi (2014) and Di Caro (2014a) seem to affirm the existence of differences in impact and/or recovery coefficients, potentially interpretable on a geographical basis. To explore this issue, we consider Moran's I index of spatial correlation (Moran, 1948).…”

“…The adverse common shocks hitting the regions are, in substantial terms, three (Bassanetti et al, 2010) Here we provide a description of regional reactions to such shocks, basing on two recent analyses that take the resilience analysis perspective: Cellini and Torrisi (2014) and Di Caro (2014a However, as yet pointed out in a pioneering contribution of Blanchard and Katz (1992) on regional evolution in the US, the place-specific response of regional and local labour markets to national adverse events -either economic recessions or other unexpected disturbances-can result in a multifaceted set of outcomes and adjustment mechanisms.…”

“…The main aim of this contribution is to provide further evidence on the economic resilience of Italian regions, comparing the results provided by two recent and distinct papers that investigate regional resilience in Italy; namely, Cellini and Torrisi (2014) and Di Caro (2014a). These articles share the common theoretical basis, and also the interpretation of resilience and the general way in which it is assessed, but they make different decisions on how to evaluate it operationally.…”

“…Section 3 outlines the main characteristics of two recent studies on the resilience of the Italian regions, Cellini and Torrisi (2014) and Di Caro (2014a). The former considers annual data on per-capita GDP while the latter chooses annual and quarterly data on employment.…”

Regional Economic Resilience: Resistance and Recoverability of Resource-Based Cities during Economic Crises in Northeast China

“…Martin et al argued that regionally-specific factors can predict the ability of a region to resist and respond to economic shocks [13]. Lagravinese suggested that regions with a higher share of public and service industries are more resistant to economic shocks [37], while Di Caro found that certain types of manufacturing activities could help to explain the high resilience of some regions during recessions and recoveries [14]. Pike examined the role of local institutions and governance in shaping regional resilience [38].…”