Abstract
This study measured the economic resilience of 269 prefecture-level cities in China by constructing an indicator evaluation system for the resilience, adjustment, and responsiveness of the economic system under external shocks. A dynamic spatial Durbin model and a moderating mediation model were employed to analyze empirically the impact of economic policy uncertainty and innovative entrepreneurial vitality on economic resilience using prefecture-level panel data from 2004 to 2018. The statistical results revealed that there were significant “snowball” effects and spatial spillover characteristics of economic resilience. Under the moderating effect of economic policy uncertainty, innovative entrepreneurial vitality was found to have a significant positive effect on economic resilience. Furthermore, innovative entrepreneurial vitality was found to enhance economic resilience significantly by upgrading the industrial structure, alleviating the income gap, and guiding economic agglomeration in the context of economic policy uncertainty. Moreover, the impacts of innovative entrepreneurial vitality and economic policy uncertainty on economic resilience, respectively, showed significant heterogeneities in terms of the cities’ regions and economic sizes. The above-mentioned results were found to be valid even after a series of robustness tests were carried out.
Highlights
We found that there were significant time lags and spatial spillover characteristics of economic resilience; innovative entrepreneurial vitality significantly enhanced economic resilience; and economic policy uncertainty strengthened the positive impact of innovative entrepreneurial vitality on economic resilience
The spatial effect was insignificant in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Middle Yangtze River urban agglomerations, but it was significant in the remaining urban agglomerations. These results indicate that the path dependence effect and spatial spillover effect of urban economic resilience were differentiated among the 11 urban agglomerations; i.e., we found significant spatial and temporal differences in the cumulative effect of economic resilience among different urban agglomerations
We found that the promoting effect of innovative entrepreneurial vitality on economic resilience gradually increased with the increase in urban level
Summary
After the 2008 financial crisis, China entered a crucial period of replacing old drivers of growth with new ones and transforming its economic structure. During this time, international geopolitical risks were rising, and international trade and investment remained weak. All regions faced external shocks, such as resource depletion, health crises, and natural disasters. Economic resilience—which denotes the ability of a regional economic system to absorb, learn from, and resolve crises by transforming the structure and functioning of the economy to achieve renewed economic growth after external shocks and disruptions (e.g., climate change, war, and economic crises) [2,3]—
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
