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Resilient, bouncing back or trapped?: Mapping responses to industrial restructuring pressure

Author

Listed:
  • Rudiger Ahrend
  • Laurenz Baertsch
  • Giuseppe Cappellari
  • Carlo Menon
  • Wessel Vermeulen
  • Zuzana Zavarska

Abstract

Industrial restructuring is a place-based process, shaped by the geographic concentration of sectors. Place-specific shocks, such as mass layoffs, add to the uneven geography of industrial restructuring. This paper identifies places exposed to intensified industrial restructuring pressure (IRP) and maps their socio-economic adjustment patterns, highlighting distinct trajectories of labour market adaptation. The analysis draws on a novel index, presented in the accompanying methodological paper Measuring industrial restructuring pressure in regions, capturing IRP episodes across different countries, time periods and types of shock. The IRP index aggregates employment outflows in declining sectors and puts additional weight on sectorally concentrated outflows. The index is applied to 449 urban labour markets in six OECD countries (Finland, France, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States), over the period 1975 to 2023. Using the new IRP index, this paper examines how different places respond to restructuring pressures and explores structural factors that shape these trajectories.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudiger Ahrend & Laurenz Baertsch & Giuseppe Cappellari & Carlo Menon & Wessel Vermeulen & Zuzana Zavarska, 2026. "Resilient, bouncing back or trapped?: Mapping responses to industrial restructuring pressure," OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers 2026/02, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:cfeaaa:2026/02-en
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • 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)

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