From shock response to structural change: linking the dimensions of regional resilience

This study examines how short-term regional economic resilience relates to longer-term structural change across EU NUTS (nomenclature of territorial units for statistics)-2 regions. We operationalise regional economic resilience as four dimensions, i.e., resistance, recovery, reorientation and renewal, and focus on the interrelationships among these dimensions. First, a systematic literature review maps the indicators used to assess resilience across the four dimensions. Second, we bring these insights into an empirical setting by assessing EU NUTS-2 regions using gross domestic product (GDP) and employment-based measures to capture the four dimensions in a consistent framework. The results show that regional resilience is not a linear progression from stabilisation to transformation. The links with renewal are mixed: recovery is only weakly positively associated with employment-based renewal, whereas better resistance is significantly associated with stronger GDP-based renewal. Overall, the findings indicate that cushioning short-term losses should be paired with capability-building measures if reorientation and renewal are explicit policy objectives.