Advances in Analyzing and Measuring Dynamic Economic Resilience

This chapter places into the broader context of an analytical framework recent research findings and policy initiatives relating to dynamic economic resilience, which is usually defined as speeding up and/or shortening the duration of recovery from disasters. Our purpose is to offer insights into the operation and implications of both of these innovations. The first pertains to research that indicates that accelerating the pace of economic recovery has much greater potential for reducing disaster losses than does compressing its duration. The second pertains to supplementing the constructing and protecting of the built environment with the resilience strategy of embedding ways of repairing and reconstructing it more quickly in the aftermath of a disaster. We first provide a context for the analysis. We next explain why the standard definition of dynamic economic resilience should be augmented to consider the entire time-path of recovery. We then explain the concept of inherent dynamic economic resilience and indicate how both innovations help clarify its definition. We conclude with an outline of our ongoing research to measure dynamic economic resilience.