TY - JOUR

T1 - Resilience and specialization

T2 - How German regions weathered the Great Recession

AU - Hundt, Christian

AU - Grün, Lennart

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Harald Bathelt and the two anonymous reviewers whose advice contributed greatly to the quality of our paper.

PY - 2022/7/26

Y1 - 2022/7/26

N2 - Abstract: This paper takes an explorative approach for analyzing the economic development of German Spatial Planning Regions during and after the Great Recession covering the period from 2007 to 2017. Specifically, we are interested in the relation between the short- and the mid-term resilience of regions and in the role of the underlying economic structure in this regard. For this purpose, we categorize regions by their GDP per capita growth in the resistance and recovery phase and then characterize the resulting region types by their average structural characteristics and track their performance through the renewal and reorientation phase. Our analysis reveals that, in general, larger shares of manufacturing, higher degrees of export orientation and specialization, and lower shares of public sector services are associated with weaker resilience and stronger recovery capacity. In addition, we observe a catch-up effect of regions with at least either an above-average resistance or recovery compared to regions with both weak resistance and slow recovery. However, we do not find a substantial reorientation effect because, in the case of Germany, the advantages of regional economic specialization still outweigh its potential disadvantages.

AB - Abstract: This paper takes an explorative approach for analyzing the economic development of German Spatial Planning Regions during and after the Great Recession covering the period from 2007 to 2017. Specifically, we are interested in the relation between the short- and the mid-term resilience of regions and in the role of the underlying economic structure in this regard. For this purpose, we categorize regions by their GDP per capita growth in the resistance and recovery phase and then characterize the resulting region types by their average structural characteristics and track their performance through the renewal and reorientation phase. Our analysis reveals that, in general, larger shares of manufacturing, higher degrees of export orientation and specialization, and lower shares of public sector services are associated with weaker resilience and stronger recovery capacity. In addition, we observe a catch-up effect of regions with at least either an above-average resistance or recovery compared to regions with both weak resistance and slow recovery. However, we do not find a substantial reorientation effect because, in the case of Germany, the advantages of regional economic specialization still outweigh its potential disadvantages.

KW - competitiveness

KW - German regions

KW - Great Recession

KW - recovery

KW - regional disparities

KW - regional economic resilience

KW - renewal

KW - reorientation

KW - resistance

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136955679&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1515/zfw-2021-0014

DO - 10.1515/zfw-2021-0014

M3 - Article

VL - 66

SP - 96

EP - 110

JO - ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography

JF - ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography

SN - 2748-1964

IS - 2

ER -