Regional Resilience to Climate and Environmental Shocks

Book excerpt: The book illustrates the use of spatial econometric models to analyze the economic resilience of regions to climate-related shocks. Although climate change is a global externality, climate anomalies can trigger locally disruptive shocks, whose adverse effects on economic growth are transmitted through neighbouring relationships (based on geography, trade, or technological bonds). After laying out the theoretical case for spatial analysis in the study of economic resilience, the book introduces spatial econometric models, their estimation and testing procedures, as well as applications of spatial econometrics in various domains. It then reviews the current literature on the role of space in the propagation of climate shocks, and discusses how adaptation and mitigation policies can leverage spatial dependencies, with a special focus on renewable energy technologies and agricultural productivity. It appeals to scholars of regional and spatial sciences and econometrics as well as those interested in the spatial effects of climate and environmental shocks.