Robustness test I.

Resilience is a crucial ability of an economy to withstand sudden events and uncertain shocks. Using the entropy method, this study measures the economic resilience of 281 Chinese cities (prefecture-level and above) from 2017 to 2022, and empirically examines the impact of COVID-19 on this resilience, as well as its transmission channels. The results show that COVID-19 adversely affected overall urban economic resilience, with contrasting effects across its sub-dimensions: an insignificant negative impact on shock resistance, a significant negative impact on adaptive recovery, and an insignificant positive impact on innovative transformation. Transmission channels analysis reveals COVID-19 impaired urban economic resilience through the channels of employment structure, consumption, investment, and unrelated diversification, with consumption identified as the predominant one. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the economic resilience of cities in both the high and low manufacturing specialization groups was more adversely affected by COVID-19 than that of cities in the medium group. Regarding services specialization, the economic resilience of cities with a medium degree of services specialization were more negatively affected by COVID-19 than that of cities with low services specialization. Furthermore, the economic resilience of cities with a higher degree of related diversification was less negatively affected by COVID-19. This study provides a replicable analytical framework and empirical evidence for enhancing urban economic resilience in China and other countries in post-pandemic era.

经济韧性（Economic Resilience）是经济体抵御突发事件与不确定性冲击的核心能力。本研究采用熵权法（Entropy Method），对2017至2022年中国281个地级及以上城市的经济韧性进行测算，并实证检验了新冠疫情（COVID-19）对该韧性的影响及其传导路径。研究结果表明，新冠疫情对城市整体经济韧性产生了负面影响，且在韧性的各细分维度上呈现异质性效应：对冲击抵御能力的负向影响不显著，对适应性恢复能力存在显著负向影响，而对创新转型能力则表现出不显著的正向影响。传导路径分析显示，新冠疫情通过就业结构、消费、投资以及非相关多元化四条路径削弱了城市经济韧性，其中消费为核心传导路径。异质性分析表明，制造业专业化程度高低两类城市的经济韧性所受新冠疫情的负面影响均显著强于中等专业化程度城市；就服务业专业化程度而言，中等专业化程度城市的经济韧性所受新冠疫情的负面影响显著高于低专业化程度城市。此外，相关多元化程度较高的城市，其经济韧性所受新冠疫情的负面影响相对更小。本研究为中国及全球其他国家在后疫情时代提升城市经济韧性提供了可复制的分析框架与经验证据。