Comparative Economic Systems and the Issue of Resilience

The paper explores the problem of resilience in the context of classical comparative economic system (CES) literature, as well as a set of key issues and challenges regarding the ways we conceptualize and think about resilience when it comes to economic systems. Part 1 overviews the classical CES literature. It notes the relative lack of interest in this literature on the topic of resilience. Part 2 discusses a variety of approaches to resilience from other disciplines, mainly physics and environmental sciences, with the view to both the potential and limits of extending these frameworks to economic systems. Part 3 reviews a set of foundational problems in thinking about resilience. The paper concludes by synthesizing the basic insights of the overview and by assessing the potential of advancing a research agenda focused on the problem of resilience in CES.