Productivity and resilience in regions and cities
Andrea Ascani

Productivity decline
Source: OECD, 2019

Growing disparities
Source: Iammarino, Rodriguez-Pose & Storper (2019)
 Persistent and relentless process of
increasing divergence between the
productivity performances of regional
economies within countries.
 Growing polarization of development
and employment opportunities in a very
limited set of locations

Perspective change
 Recurrent shocks in the last two decades have reoriented the debate towards
the concept of resilience [Christopherson et al., 2010; Pendall et al., 2010; Martin and Sunley, 2015].
o Territorial responses and vulnerability to disruptions and disturbances.
 An evolutionary perspective on resilience [Pike et al., 2010; Boschma, 2015]:
o On-going process of constant change
o Resilient economies can adapt to changing markets, technologies, etc.
 Adaptability as the capacity to “bounce forward” by creating new paths of
development, rather than just employing local resources to reproduce existing
structures (adaptation).

An integrated framework
Source: Iannone et al. (2022)
 “Uncharted waters”: combining productivity and evolutionary resilience
o Complex geography of regional profiles

An integrated framework
 Local economies with different but complementary activities in terms of
required skills and technological competences (related variety).
o Associated with relatively higher resilience and lower productivity
 Regions with related varieties of activities, but also a large set of unrelated
sectors do well in terms of both productivity and resilience.
o Some capital regions (but not only) such as Île-de-France, Amsterdam, Stockholm,
Helsinki…
 Peripheral regions associated with a combination of low diversity of economic
mix, bad institutions, low investment in human capital and physical capital.
o Not a homogeneous group!
Source: Iannone et al. (2022)

So what?
 Evolutionary resilience as the core of a regional development theory and policy
approach.
o The current crisis might be a moment in time to rethink traditional policy aims.
o Should the main aim be productivity or resilience? Or both (is it possible)?
 Ground policies into the local context (place-sensitive)
o “Territorial capital” is heterogeneous, especially in a crisis where the structural
weaknesses become more evident and regional disparities might increase in the recovery
phase.
o Open questions about potential radical changes such as remote working and digitalization.
 Need for vertical coordination across levels of governments

So what?
 Policy failure during crises
 Cognitive bias mixed with confirmation bias:
o Skepticism about warnings and adoption of risky behaviours to make a point
o Seizing upon information that confirms preferred position or hypothesis
o Non-linear fashion of crisis (such as pandemic): start small but grow exponentially
 difficult to tackle in real time
o Actions should be taken very early when threat is small
o If intervention works, it may be perceived as overreaction (bad for politicians)
 Partial solutions and systematic approach
oMeasures are effective in combination to other measures, not in isolation

Thank you
andrea.ascani@gssi.it