Regional resilience is high on the scientific and policy agenda. An essential feature of resilience is diversifying into new activities. But, little is known about whether major economic crises accelerate or decelerate regional diversification, and whether the impact differs between specialised and diverse regions.
Today Ron Boschma will talk about an empirical paper on regional resilience that he recently completed. This paper offers systematic evidence on the effects of three of the largest crises in U.S. history (the Long Depression 1873-1879, the Great Depression 1929-1934, and the Oil Crisis 1973-1975) on the development of new technological capabilities within U.S. metropolitan areas. The study finds that crises reduce the pace of diversification in cities and that they narrow the scope of diversification to more closely related activities. Further, the findings show that more diverse cities outperform more specialised cities in diversifying during times of crisis, but more diverse cities do not have a stronger focus on less related diversification during these unsettled times.
Ron Boschma is Professor in Regional Economics at Utrecht University and Professor in Innovation Studies at the University of Stavanger. He has written prominent works in the fields of Evolutionary Economic Geography, Spatial Evolution of Industries, Geography of Innovation, Regional Growth, and Regional Diversification. Boschma was ranked by Thomson Reuters among the top 1% of cited researchers worldwide in 2014, 2015 and 2016. He is Editor of Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, and Associate Editor of Industrial and Corporate Change, Regional Science and Regional Studies.