Resilience or lock-in? Path dependency and structural change after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake

Focusing on the devastating 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila (Italy), we investigate how local economies adapt and specialise after disasters. We apply a large-scale synthetic control across multiple indices (specialisation, diversity, complexity) over a long period (2004–20). Results show persistent specialisation and concentration, a halving of diversity, and a delayed decline in complexity, with resilience stemming from the administrative continuity of essential services rather than from renewal. Finally, we find that centralised governance reflected and reinforced political–institutional path dependency, leading to reconstruction bias. This suggests that without strategic efforts toward diversification, disasters can consolidate structural lock-ins and long-term fragility.