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The Crisis and Regional Resilience in Europe: On the Importance of Urbanization and Specialization

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Listed:
  • Steven Brakman
  • Harry Garretsen
  • Charles van Marrewijk
  • Charles van Marrewijk

Abstract

Using a rich data set on the EU regions, we analyze the relevance of two possible determinants of a region’s resilience to shocks, the degree of urbanization and specialization. We take the Great Recession, the economic and financial crisis that started in 2008, as our shock and then analyze how the NUTS II EU regions differ in their resilience to the crisis in terms of unemployment and real GDP per capita. In prior research it has been well established that (EU) regions differ in their resilience to shocks but it typically remains unclear as to why regions differ in this respect. For the 2008- 2012 period, we find that the degree and nature of regional urbanization and specialization are important drivers of the resilience of EU regions. More in particular, we find that that EU regions with a relatively large share of its population in commuting areas in combination with a specialization in medium high tech industries are relatively resilient, that is were less affected by the crisis, a result that suggests a relationship with international trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Charles van Marrewijk & Charles van Marrewijk, 2014. "The Crisis and Regional Resilience in Europe: On the Importance of Urbanization and Specialization," CESifo Working Paper Series 4724, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4724
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    Cited by:

    1. Anastasios Kitsos & Paul Bishop, 2018. "Economic resilience in Great Britain: the crisis impact and its determining factors for local authority districts," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(2), pages 329-347, March.
    2. Vinko Mustra & Blanka Simundic & Zvonimir Kulis, 2017. "Efectos de la especialización inteligente en la resiliencia económica regional en la UE," Revista de Estudios Regionales, Universidades Públicas de Andalucía, vol. 3, pages 175-195.
    3. Pontarollo, Nicola & Serpieri, Carolina, 2020. "A composite policy tool to measure territorial resilience capacity," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Daniel Arribas-Bel & Michiel Gerritse, 2015. "From manufacturing belt, to rust belt, to college country: a visual narrative of US urban growth," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(6), pages 1241-1253, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    resilience; shock sensitivity; urbanization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R15 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Econometric and Input-Output Models; Other Methods

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