New Perspectives on Economic Resilience from Industrial and Business History

The article analyses the relationship between industrial and business history and the theoretical framework of regional resilience developed by evolutionary economic geography. This school of thought understands resilience not only as the capacity to absorb shocks, but also as the ability to adapt and reshape long-term development trajectories. The text reviews the main determinants of economic resilience and emphasizes that this phenomenon is a process heavily dependent on trajectory and on the technological, institutional and economic context, meaning that its analysis requires a historical perspective. The article highlights how business history and industrial history allow for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of adaptation, reorientation and structural change. Finally, it presents the contributions to this special issue, which demonstrate how the interaction between productive capacities, institutions, public policies and cultural resources shapes differentiated responses to crises and economic transformations.