TY - JOUR TI - Growth, stability, and resilience of U.S. metropolitan regions, 1990-2017 DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-1qzy-cd66 PY - 2019 AB - Various national and regional socioeconomic shocks such as recessions can affect the stability of regional economies. Still, regions react in diverse ways to the same forces; some recover slowly despite being less affected while others recover rapidly despite being heavily impacted. To examine the dynamics of regional economies, this study focuses on the extent to which a region can avoid faltering in a crisis (stability) and how quickly it can respond positively to the crisis (resilience), while sustaining a long-run pattern of expansion (growth). This study presents two new measures of recessionary periods of 382 U.S. metropolitan areas for stability and resilience, in addition to the use of the overall growth rate, using monthly data from January 1990 through March 2017. This study categorizes metropolitan areas into eight categories by using nationwide or median figures. Results demonstrate that a good deal of variation exists among metropolitan areas in terms of growth, stability, and resilience and that only a few are relatively stable and resilient while growing fast. Four of the eight categories are heavily loaded, with each containing slightly less than 20% of all metropolitan areas. Curiously, two are the categories of metropolitan areas that grew fast and were stable; the others are the polar opposite set, which grew slowly and were unstable. This suggests that stable metropolitan areas tend to grow faster but the level of resilience varies greatly among them. This study then examines the geography of the outcomes of the classification scheme. As established elsewhere, from 1990 to 2017 metropolitan areas of the Northeast grew slowly, and those of the West and South were more apt to grow more rapidly. These general growth trends are undoubtedly at least partly connected to general geographic changes in trade patterns which moved away from Europe and toward Mexico and the Pacific Rim. Less well known over the study period is that metropolitan areas of the Northeast were also more unstable than most of their equivalents elsewhere in the U.S., and those in the U.S. West tended to be more resilient to their own vagaries. To identify explanatory variables that affect growth, stability, and resilience, this study performs seemingly unrelated regression, three-stage least squares, and categorical analyses. A few variables have shown statistical significance on the metropolitan employment dynamics, regardless of national recession periods, Census Regions, or economy scales. The wide applicability of these variables may thus be suitable for consideration as a federal policy. Other variables showing statistical significance for a particular time, region, or economy scale may help set goals for specific metropolitan areas. KW - Planning and Public Policy KW - Business cycles--United States KW - Economic stabilization--United States LA - eng ER -