The more labelled, the more resilient? Place branding and the 2008 Great Recession in Italian inner areas

This paper addresses the theoretical and empirical gap regarding the relationship between place branding and regional economic resilience during the 2008 Great Recession, focusing on Italian inner areas as defined by the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) classification. Specifically, it investigates whether labels linked to preservation and quality of nature and landscape, agriculture and livestock production, and cultural–historical–architectural heritage helped mitigate the impact of the crisis. The econometric analysis reveals a mixed relationship between these place-branding factors and the resilience patterns, with predominantly adverse effects. These findings should be carefully considered in light of the growing place-based policy emphasis on peripheral areas at the Italian and EU levels.