Spatial determinants of regional economic resilience: evidence from EU NUTS 2 regions

Over the last decade, European Union regions experienced two systemic but dissimilar shocks, raising questions about whether own-region and neighbouring characteristics support resilience consistently across crises and adjustment stages. This study identifies recurrent pre-crisis correlates of regional economic resilience in an interdependent regional system and tests whether these associations remain stable across crises and dimensions. Five dimension-specific sensitivity indices measure resistance, recovery, reorientation, and renewal for 244 EU NUTS 2 regions during the Great Financial and Sovereign Debt Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. These indices are aligned: higher values indicate stronger performance, without aggregation into a composite score. A pooled Spatial Durbin model estimates associations with time-weighted pre-crisis characteristics, decomposing direct, indirect, and total impacts; crisis- and dimension-interacted specifications test stability. Relative specialisation and R&D intensity show the strongest positive system-wide associations, while investment intensity shows the strongest negative association. Industrial concentration is negatively associated with resilience, while social and health conditions are positively associated, mainly through local channels. Strong spatial dependence confirms that resilience also reflects the characteristics of connected regions. However, recurrent factors vary in magnitude and spatial channels across crises and resilience dimensions. Policy should therefore strengthen recurrent capacities while remaining spatially coordinated and stage-specific.