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

Abstract

This paper quantitatively analyzes the economic resilience of resource-based cities (RBCs) in Northeast China in terms of resistance and recoverability during two economic crises: the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis. Moreover, it analyzes the main factors that affected regional resilience. There are three main findings. First, the RBCs in general demonstrated poor resistance during both recessions, but there were variations among the different types of RBCs. Petroleum and metal cities demonstrated the most resistance, whereas coal cities performed the worst. Second, the influential factors affecting economic resilience varied across the two economic cycles, but location advantage, research and development (R and D) intensity, foreign trade dependence ratio, and supporting policies had positive effects on resilience during both economic cycles, while the proportion of employed persons in resource industries had a negative effect. Industrial diversity had a weak and ambiguous effect on resilience. Third, the secondary industry was more resilient during the Asian financial crisis, but the tertiary industry was more resilient during the global financial crisis. This shift may be attributed to both the nature of the crises and the strength of the sectors at the time of the crises.

Regional economic resilience of resource‐based cities and influential factors during economic crises in China

“…The results showed that RBCs had low resistance during the two recessions from peak to trough, which was consistent with previous research on the economic resistance of RBCs in Northeast China (Tan et al, 2017), and is also consistent with other previous research by Li, Zhang, and Cheng (2009) and Su, Zhang, and Li (2008) who found that the economies of mining cities are vulnerable to external shocks, especially the resource-depleted mining cities. We found that coal-based and forestry-based cities had lower economic resistance, while oil & gas-based cities had high resistance.…”

“…Li, Zhang, and Li () examined regional economic resilience of Liaoning Province in China in terms of resistance and recoverability. Tan et al () quantitatively analyzed the economic resilience of RBCs in Northeast China in terms of resistance and recoverability. They draw the familiar conclusion that the regional economic resilience was low and its economy was more vulnerable to external shocks in Chinese old industrial cities and RBCs.…”

“…Therefore, with singular industrial structures, RBCs are likely to have low economic resilience. Previous research showed that the RBCs in Northeast China demonstrated poor resistance during two economic recessions (Tan et al, 2017). These existing researches were very much case-based highlighting the role of industrial structure, state policy, SOEs, institutions, lacking macro view on all Chinese RBCs; however, quantitative method of studying resilience has been rarely used to examine Chinese "problem regions" more broadly and we do not know too much about the key impact factors in China's RBCs in general.…”

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