Understanding employment growth in the recession: the geographic diversity of state rescaling

Abstract

We conduct an employment growth model of all US county areas for the mild recession after 9/11 and the Great Recession. We find employment growth is positively related to educational attainment and state centralisation of fiscal responsibility and negatively related to manufacturing employment. We use Geographically Weighted Regression to explore the spatial diversity of responses and find neither theories of the developmental state nor austerity urbanism adequately predict locality response to the recession. State rescaling has shifted redistributive expenditure responsibility down to the local level, crowding out developmental investments and undermining local resilience.

Local employment growth patterns and the Great Recession: The case of Spain

“…Nevertheless, overall, a similar picture emerges where human capital endowment has played a critical role for local employment growth during the years of the Great Recession. In this respect, my results agree with the analysis of Xu and Warner () for the US that with the Great Recession educational attainment has actually become more important for employment growth.…”

“…Similarly, Fratesi and Rodríguez‐Pose () in their study of NUTS 2 level employment change in Europe between 1995–2007 and 2008–2012 also argue that in general capital regions have done better during the crisis than the average of their country. Xu and Warner () study changes in employment growth in U.S. counties during recessions and find weak results for urban and metropolitan county status. Monsson () is one of the few papers that has looked specifically at the urban core and hinterland relation but this study is confined to the Copenhagen area.…”

Geographies of Local Government Stress after the Great Recession

“…State rescaling theories predict diverse responses at the local level to increased levels of stress after the Great Recession based on local institutions, spatial characteristics and state policy (Kim and Warner ; Lobao and Adua ; Peck et al ; Warner and Clifton ; Xu and Warner , ). Using a national dataset of cities and counties, we examined the geographies of local government stress and restructuring in the aftermath of the Great Recession.…”

“…Without higher‐level state support, spatial inequality will increase. This is one of the challenges of decentralization (Rodríguez‐Pose et al ) especially for rural areas (Lobao et al ; Xu and Warner , ) that is exacerbated by the Great Recession. Addressing fiscal stress requires structural changes in a rescaling government system.…”

“…Some have called these responses ‘austerity urbanism’ to highlight the further neo‐liberalization of local governance (Peck ). However, in a multi‐level governance system, how localities experience stress and their responses will vary (Kitson et al ; Martin ; Xu and Warner ). The literature on state rescaling in the USA emphasizes variation in state level behaviour in a multi‐level governance system and the internal institutional attributes that determine local responses (Lobao and Adua ; Xu and Warner ).…”