Professors Donald Davis and David Weinstein have been doing groundbreaking work together in the field of economic geography, studying the robustness of cities in the aftermath of a great shock. Since 2002, they have done an empirical study of Japan's economic recovery after the Allied bombing that destroyed almost ninety percent of Japanese manufacturing. They have sought to determine whether the economies of bombed cities returned to their former states or whether they entered a downward spiral. Their conclusion: "Faced even with shocks of frightening magnitude, there is a strong tendency for cities to recover not only their prior share of population and manufacturing in aggregate, but even the specific industries that they previously enjoyed."

In the field of Economics, this has yielded interesting results. Davis and Weinstein's findings have undermined the widely held and heavily theoretical notion of multiple equilibria that asserts that rather than returning to their former states, economies having undergone great shocks do not revert to their former states but change and develop in different ways than before. Their work has also had significant practical implications on issues such as the effects of the terrorist strike of September 11, 2001 on the economy of New York - The New York Times columnist and economist, Paul Krugman, quoted Davis and Weinstein in his column on October 3, 2001, and predicted: "That doesn't mean that New York's future is assured—while cities are very persistent, they do rise and fall over time. But if the Japanese parallel is at all relevant, the attack on New York, for all its horror, will have no effect worth mentioning on the city's long-run economic prospects."

Donald R. Davis and David E. Weinstein, "Bones, Bombs, and Break Points: The Geography of Economic Activity". American Economic Review, 92:5, December 2002 (Lead Article).