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The measurement of resilience

Author

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  • Asheim, Geir B.
  • Bossert, Walter
  • D'Ambrosio, Conchita
  • Vögele, Claus

Abstract

Resilience has become an important topic in many social sciences. Numerous individual choices and economic and demographic outcomes are likely to be influenced by people's resilience. School performance, work absenteeism and burnout, longevity, the quality of sleep and health-risk behaviors such as substance abuse are some examples. Similarly, it is of high policy relevance to understand the determinants of both individual resilience (such as educational, marital and occupational status) and ecological resilience (such as climate change). Empirical work designed to uncover such relationships suffers from the absence of a resilience measure applicable in the context of large data sets. We fill this gap by proposing a specific measure that is characterized by a set of natural properties. After an introduction to the notion of resilience and its attributes, we argue why these conditions have intuitive appeal. Finally, we provide illustrating examples and derive our main characterization result.

Suggested Citation

  • Asheim, Geir B. & Bossert, Walter & D'Ambrosio, Conchita & Vögele, Claus, 2020. "The measurement of resilience," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:189:y:2020:i:c:s0022053120300971
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2020.105104
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    Cited by:

    1. Alcalde-Unzu, Jorge & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Weber, Shlomo, 2022. "The measurement of the value of a language," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    2. Ricardo Martínez & Juan D Moreno Ternero, 2021. "Pandemic performance," ThE Papers 21/09, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    3. David W. Johnston & Claryn S. J. Kung & Michael A. Shields, 2021. "Who is resilient in a time of crisis? The importance of financial and non‐financial resources," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3051-3073, December.
    4. Martínez, Ricardo & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2022. "An axiomatic approach towards pandemic performance indicators," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Etilé, Fabrice & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A., 2020. "Psychological Resilience to Major Socioeconomic Life Events," IZA Discussion Papers 13063, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Platz, Trine Tornøe & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2023. "QALYs, DALYs, and HALYs: A unifying framework for the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Etilé, Fabrice & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A., 2021. "Measuring resilience to major life events," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 598-619.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Resilience; German socio-economic panel; Index numbers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

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