Economic Resilience and Regional disparities: the contribution of spatial analysis

The recent economic debate on the long run growth has emphasized that the social and economic evolution of a given geographical area can be influenced also by the occurrence of sudden and unpredictable shocks. In this regard, the ability to recover from or adjust to the negative impacts of external economic shocks, defined as the “Economic Resilience”, can be conditioned by the pre- shock conditions. Characteristics such as the economic structure, dynamism, market and political conditions, resources endowment and the ability to innovate of a given region may contribute to shape its resistance and exacerbate, or on the contrary mitigate, economic disparities driving to either a convergence or a divergence process of income or employment across regions. Nevertheless, studies investigating the impact of economic resilience on regional disparities are still limited. The economic debated, instead, focused mainly on the research of the characteristics that would make each region most resilient in order to drive policymakers in building appropriate measures and strategies reducing the vulnerability of spatial systems to shocks and enhance their ability to better respond to and recover from a shock. It becomes crucial to account for the presence of spatial linkages, in particular when looking at policies’ implications that may spread beyond the geographical boundaries and generate beneficial or harmful externalities on neighbouring regions. The use of spatial analytical tools, such as those provided by spatial econometric methodologies (Anselin, 1988; LeSage and Pace, 2009), enable to account for the presence of spatial effects that otherwise would lead to an incorrect representation and understanding of the true causal processes at work.