Shocks, resilience and regional industry policy: Brexit and the automotive sector in two Midlands regions
基于新调查证据，研究脱欧作为“破坏性过程”对英国中部两个地区汽车制造业和物流的潜在区域影响，并探讨区域产业政策如何应对冲击。
This article draws upon novel survey evidence to examine the possible regional impacts of Brexit as a ‘disruptive process’ to manufacturing operations and logistics in the automotive industry, in the context of the regional resilience literature. The current Brexit (and Covid-19) context, along with the sector’s need to re-orientate towards electrification, provides renewed urgency to reconsider industrial policy in spatial terms. The findings have salience not only in the context of anticipating and reacting to Brexit-induced economic shocks at a regional level, but also over the role of decentralized regional bodies. In this regard, the UK government’s agenda of ‘levelling up’ will be challenging, especially in the context of the place-based shocks likely to arise from Brexit as well as the impact of Covid-19. The article concludes that a more place-based regional industrial policy is required both to anticipate and to respond to shocks and also to reposition the sector in the region going forward.