New project on the regional ripple effects of industrial transformation

The manufacturing sector in Germany is  at the center of a profound industrial transformationundergoing a profound structural transformation. Plant closures and bankruptcies among of automotive suppliers dominate the headlines, while the entire sector faces challenges from global transformation processes. However, it is not only the automotive industry facing the challenges of global transformation processes—other sectors such as the chemical-pharmaceutical industry, mechanical engineering, the electrical industry, and more are also affected.
These include shifting demand conditions and rising production costs -especially energy costs. Also the chemical-pharmaceutical sector, mechanical engineering, electrical industry, and other industrial sectors are also currently in a challenging economic situation.

These economic and structural changes do not occur evenly across space but impact different regions of Germany to varying degreesdo not affect all regions of Germany equally, but hit different regions with varying intensity. This raises the question of how severely rural areas are affected, particularly those in which manufacturing accounts for a large share of employment and value creation. The first goal of this project is thus to identify affected regions and classify them according to the extent of their by the degree of impactexposure. Based on these findingsinsights, more targeted economic policy measures can be developed, to that help stabilize the industrial core of regional locations.

The second goal of the project isAdditionally, the project aims  to identify regional factors that influence people's location decisions when they lose their jobslocation decisions following job loss. In detail, itWe will analyze in detail how far workers employees are willing to commute and what is needed to retain the affected individuals—and thus thewith them, human capital—in the region. In doing so, Wwe aim to identify tipping points at which regions may enter a downward spiral. We also investigate whether retaining human capital strengthens a region’s long-term resilience or not, and—or, if not, whether providing infrastructure in these regions merely results in costs.whether it merely results in costs due to infrastructure provision.

Further information about our project: Projektlink

Contact: Alexander Kopka