Call for Papers
Adverse Economic Shocks, Conflicts, and Resilience at the Regional Level
Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 October 2025
Full Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 May 2026
It is well-known that some regions are more resilient than other regions when they experience (economic) shocks. They turn out to be less affected by a shock, or recover more quickly. Examples of large economic shocks are the economic and financial crisis beginning in 2008 and leading to ‘The Great Recession’ or the Covid-19 pandemic that started in 2020.
The literature on the measurement and relevance of regional resilience has grown rapidly in recent years. Also from an empirical perspective, it is by now well established that regions differ in their resilience to shocks or, more generally, structural change. Which determinants affect a region’s resilience or the lack thereof is, however, still not well understood.
This special issue combines research into the causes, consequences and policy responses of regional resilience.
Topics for this call for papers include but are not restricted to:
- The importance of trade linkages for regional shock sensitivity and resilience. Does specialization increase shock sensitivity or do trade linkages serve as an insurance against shocks?
- How important is the structure of the regional economy for shock sensitivity?
- Is the type of shock important for regional resilience? Some shocks, such as the Covid pandemic are global, while others are local, such as earthquakes or the recent fires in California.
- How to distinguish the regional or local impact of shocks from the impact of more gradual, structural changes like technological, demographical, climate or geo-political changes?
- Do policy responses or interventions make certain regions more resilient than others?
- The impact of historical shocks, like slavery, bombing on regional economies and resilience. What lessons do these shocks provide for current regional resilience.
- Physical shocks such as bombing, earthquakes, and fires have a different impact than economic or political shocks, why is this the case?
Guest Editors:
Prof. Steven Brakman
University of Groningen
the Netherlands
Prof. Harry Garretsen
University of Groningen
the Netherlands
Prof. Charles van Marrewijk
Utrecht University
the Netherlands
Keywords: structural change; financial crisis; shock
Submission Guidelines/Instructions
The special issue is accompanied by a Special Issue workshop on 20/21 November 2025, in Utrecht. Promising papers are invited to be presented in Utrecht, and a selection of papers is invited to be submitted to JRS for the special issue by May 30, 2026, subject to the JRS review procedure.
Hotel and travel expenses for invited presenters will be reimbursed (economy class tickets and two hotel nights, in consultation with the organizers: for details, please contact: Charles van Marrewijk, Utrecht University: [email protected]).
If you are interested to present a paper at this workshop, please send an abstract to one the editors (see above for emails) no later than October 1, 2025.
Please refer to the Author Guidelines to prepare your manuscript. When submitting your manuscript, please answer the question: "Is this submission for a special issue?" by selecting the special issue title from the drop-down list.