The Gran Sasso Science Institute in L’Aquila, Italy has launched a new Discussion Paper Series in Regional Science and Economic Geography.
With an article that relates the spatiality of COVID-19 to the structure of local economies, the GSSI area of Social Sciences launches a Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography (RSEG), which aims at providing a forum for debating initial research outcomes of high quality standard.

It hosts contributions on a wide range of topics within and across regional science and economic geography, encouraging a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives on socio-economic phenomena with an inherently spatial nature. Each article undergoes a light and fast review process managed by a Scientific Committee within the GSSI area of Social Sciences (for this and other info about how to submit a contribution, visit the website).
The Discussion Papers address some of the most urgent issues and trends of the 21st century, like socio-spatial (income/wealth) inequalities, migration flows and labour mobility, disasters (natural, environmental and health) and resilience, globalisation vs. localisation patterns, the political economy of urban and regional development, the geography of innovation and entrepreneurship, tech-driven urban and regional economies (e.g. platform urbanism), the shifting location of economic activity and new technologies, just to mention a few.

The series is inaugurated by the paper “The geography of COVID-19 and the structure of local economies: The case of Italy”, in which Andrea Ascani, Alessandra Faggian and Sandro Montresor (GSSI Social Sciences) develop an analysis of the relationship between the geography of COVID-19 and the structure of local economies, by focusing on the case of Italian provinces. In order to explain the striking spatial unevenness of COVID-19, the paper hypothesises and offers preliminary evidence that locations specialised in economic activities that are characterised by high geographical concentration might be subject to relatively higher infections due to the agglomeration advantages characterising these industries.

More details and submission guidelines can be found here