Economic resilience in ASEAN under global shocks: The roles of demography, investment, digital economy, and talent

The global economic landscape has been increasingly shaped by technological disruption, demographic pressures, and external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, raising urgent questions about what drives economic resilience (ER) in developing regions like ASEAN. This study investigates the determinants of ER across ten ASEAN countries from 2010 to 2023, focusing on population growth (PG), foreign investment (FI), digital economy (DE), talent (TLN), and technology (TECH). After confirming slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence, unit root tests (CADF, CIPS) and Westerlund cointegration were applied, followed by the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) as the main estimator. To account for global shocks and cross-sectional dependence, Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) estimators were employed, while Fixed Effects (FE), Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), and Driscoll–Kraay errors were used for robustness. The results reveal significant heterogeneity across the ER distribution. FI, TLN, and TECH exhibit rising positive effects at higher quantiles, indicating that more resilient economies benefit more from capital inflows, education quality, and digital readiness. DE has a limited or mixed influence, becoming significant only under certain long-run models, while PG shows weak and inconsistent effects. Contrasts between MMQR and long-run estimators highlight that short-term resilience during shocks such as COVID-19 is shaped by digital infrastructure and institutional capacity, whereas long-run gains depend on regional integration and structural reform. Robustness checks largely affirm these patterns. The study concludes that ASEAN's resilience is shaped by both absorptive capacity and policy responsiveness. It underscores the need for inclusive digitalization, human capital development, and coordinated regional strategies to ensure that economic shocks translate into adaptive, rather than regressive, outcomes. These findings inform targeted reforms that can help ASEAN countries build resilience in a volatile and interconnected global economy.