We are currently immersed in a phase of uncertainty in which researchers from almost all scientific disciplines are processing data and proposing hypotheses in real time, that is, carrying out the tasks of the initial dynamics of a crisis that will keep us busy for a long time. Especially since that time is needed for the facts that provide the necessary information to allow us to obtain relevant conclusions to respond to some of the questions that society is currently asking us. In the field of social sciences, and especially in the field of economics, we are asking ourselves some questions that we can only answer at the moment, at best, with a quantitative (mathematical) measure of uncertainty.

And this uncertainty is one of the main causes that contribute to intensifying the crisis context, the result of the inaction of many economic agents who, due to prudence, impossibility or being immersed in a process of change and adaptation to a new situation, cease or decrease their activity. It is for this reason that while we generate science that increases certainty, we must also contribute to it by proposing solutions to previous problems, with a greater degree of scientific development, which undoubtedly worsen in the new scenario, and probably have contributed to it, or at least to increase their intensity level.

The territorial distribution of the population and economic activity has undergone in recent decades a major change in the most advanced economies, in which the rural exodus has led to a displacement towards large cities to the detriment of the small population centers that have traditionally occupied the space in a balanced and sustainable way in most cases. And this change, often justified by the use of increasing returns to scale, has been the source of other collateral problems, especially in the case of environmental problems and sustainability of resources, overused in some cases and abandoned and underused in others. It seems that now, in a time of pandemic, the concentration of people and activities well above what is probably the optimal equilibrium point from the ecology point of view, does not help to contain the epidemic and therefore supposes a clear ballast to economic activity.

This is why the economic spatial-temporal approach, which considers the territorial distribution of economic variables in space, as well as in time, seems very appropriate to approach research in economic matters. Spatial econometrics and the analysis of complexity sciences, especially the one that uses complex socio-technical systems, can provide an especially useful approach to address the implications of territorial distribution in obtaining a sustainable economic model that allows achieving a balance in the medium and long term with the capacity to respond to shocks of very high intensity, such as the one we are currently experiencing.

In this line, Allied Business Academies works with professionals and academics of the highest level, guaranteeing rigor and seriousness in their publications. I would like to thank everyone for their contribution, as well as the scientists who have submitted their publication proposals, as they have collaborated in this way, through Allied Business Academies, to the dissemination of a significant number of the highest quality studies.