ECONOMIC RESILIENCE
Reflections on the meaning of economic resilience and how urban areas can strengthen their resilience to economic shocks.
Economic shocks are ever present. Whether this is the global financial crash of 2007/08; the closure of a local employer, or changing patterns of employment and production the effects on our towns and cities can be substantial. One of the most difficult questions to answer is why some places are more able to withstand economic shocks than others, or are able to recover more quickly.
In this section we draw on recent research to explore what can be learnt from those places that appear to have more resilient economies and to consider the factors that assist the resilience of places to economic shocks.
In doing so we open up important questions about what constitutes a resilient economy, how change happens over time and who benefits from this. This highlights the important role played by the values that shape the actions of individuals, firms and policy bodies in seeking to secure their own economic resilience as well as contributing to collective outcomes.
Much of the focus of this section is on European economies and other high-income countries. We hope the examples presented will be of interest in other contexts as well.
The long-lasting legacy of short-term decision-making: responding to COVID-19
The effects of the coronavirus crisis will leave an economic legacy long after the virus has passed its peak. How governments respond now will determine the health of our communities for a generation to come. Whilst the Coronavirus [...]
Resilience: The Role of Grounded Firms
A contested theme in economic resilience is the positive and negative effects of firms that are embedded (or grounded) in their local economy versus those that are more footloose. In this article we ask whether the size or ownership [...]
A ‘cycle’ of resilience? The rule of four.
Resilience is often described as a series of stages. In practice, policy-makers recognise four stages in a resilience-cycle. However, the dynamic nature of resilience means that these stages may overlap as an economy experiences multiple shocks over time. [...]
Parameters of resilience: the fundamentals don’t change but the findings might.
Economic resilience has been described as a fuzzy concept. Asking some simple questions, such as the resilience of what, to what and for whom can help to bring clarity. This will help policy-makers determine what path they should chart [...]
Coping with massive firm closure: Lessons from a Task Force
The failure of MG Rover and the closure of the Longbridge Car Plant in 2005 dealt a major blow to the economy of the West Midlands. What lessons can we learn from this for promoting resilience to sudden economic [...]
Applying the Goldilocks principle to economic resilience
In this article we consider whether the role of economic diversity in the resilience of an economy. Whilst the evidence is mixed it seems that the Goldilocks principle – neither too much diversity nor too little – is the [...]
Coronavirus, agency and economic resilience: Witnessing the power of the herd.
Public response to the coronavirus pandemic forcefully demonstrates the collective power of individual agency. The experience of the early weeks of the pandemic illustrates how government does not always lead in the way that resilience thinking often presumes. [...]
Economic resilience: Are we minimising losses or maximising welfare?
Economic resilience is typically used in two distinct, but overlapping, ways (see for example, Hallegatte, 2014). At one level it can be broadly defined as the ability of an economy as a whole to cope, recover from and reconstruct [...]
Policies and practices for economic resilience
There is no single path to a resilient economy, but some common themes emerge. A key role taken by public authorities in the aftermath of an economic shock is to stabilize the situation, both through its own actions and [...]
Five features for resilient economies
The ability of local and regional economies to withstand and recover from economic shocks came under intense scrutiny during the financial crisis of 2008/2009. One study, led by Cardiff University, compared levels of regional economic resilience across the whole [...]