Divergent futures and structural change: Regional economic scenarios and resilience for trade shocks

This paper develops quantitative regional economic scenarios for Dutch NUTS2 provinces, with varying global structural conditions, over 2020–2060 to assess regional economic resilience. Using panel econometric estimations combined with the EU-EMS recursive-dynamic spatial computable general equilibrium model, we translate scenario narratives, grounded in the SSP1 and SSP3 global pathways, into internally consistent projections of production value, employment, and sectoral specialization. The high-growth scenario assumes continued globalization and knowledge-intensive service expansion, whereas the low-growth scenario assumes deglobalization, reshoring of industrial production, and demographic stagnation. While the Dutch economy grows under both scenarios, growth falls substantially below the historical average and its spatial distribution diverges sharply. The high-growth scenario deepens the urban–peripheral divide by concentrating knowledge-intensive activity in the Randstad whereas the low-growth scenario revitalises industrial production in Noord-Brabant and Limburg through reshoring. The northern peripheral provinces face negative employment growth regardless of scenario, pointing to structural vulnerabilities that persist across both futures. The findings argue for adaptive, geographically differentiated resilience strategies rather than static policy commitments to a single structural future.