Natural Disaster, (re)active Cities and Knowledge Flow: Exploring the Synergies Between Urban Development, Public R&D Investment, and Students’ Attractiveness

In recent decades, the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters have raised critical questions about how cities adapt and evolve in response to extreme shocks. While the disruptive effects on infrastructure, economic activity, and social systems are well documented, less is known about how these events reshape urban dynamics related to knowledge flows and human capital attraction. Focusing on two important earthquakes in Italy (Abruzzo, 2009 and Emilia-Romagna, 2012), this paper examines the interaction between economic growth, R&D investment, and students’ mobility in a city post-natural disaster. Using a two-stage empirical approach that combines pre/post-disaster comparison with dynamic panel estimation (GMM), we find that the relationship between urban economic development and student inflows intensifies up to a certain threshold, after which it gradually weakens. Furthermore, we show that public R&D investment significantly reinforces the capacity of cities to attract students in the aftermath of natural disasters. Overall, these findings increase our understanding of cities’ reactiveness to natural disasters in the urban environment and support the governments, policymakers, and practitioners in developing urban planning and policy post-event.