Network and Spatial Interactions in Regional Economic Resilience Studies: A Scientometric Analysis

The concept of regional economic resilience (RER) is still attracting interest among researchers and practitioners, sustained by current geopolitical instability and overlapping multiple shocks worldwide. Despite a very large number of scientific and policy works, including diverse literature reviews, that have investigated the field from different perspectives, network-based systematic evidence on RER publications remains incomplete. By adopting a spatial empirical perspective, and applying scientometric-based analytical tools, this paper provides novel evidence on the network features of resilience studies published in the last two decades. Results point out the occurrence and extent of specific network interactions among authors, countries, journals of publications. Our findings are also informative on the key empirical approaches dealing with RER. The empirics contribute to the debate surrounding the conceptual development of RER and provide guidance to scholars and policymakers employing the RER framework.