Building economic resilience in Queensland

A resilient economy tends to endure shorter and less severe downturns. This benefits the community by ameliorating the worst impacts of economic shocks—income losses and unemployment. Resilience also has longer-term consequences for economic growth, through its impact on employment and investment. And from a policy perspective, there is a strong correlation between those policies that support resilience and those that support productivity growth, which ultimately improves the living standards of Queenslanders.

This research paper contributes to this discussion in Queensland. It provides a high-level framework to guide consideration of policy approaches to support a more productive and resilient Queensland economy. It sets out what economic resilience means and why it matters, the performance of the Queensland economy pre-COVID-19 and the initial economic impact of the COVID-19 response. It concludes by identifying some broad principles for building resilience and productivity and discusses the main (state-level) areas of policy that can be harnessed to improve resilience.