Capital accumulation, aspiration adjustment, and population growth: limit cycles in an Easterlin-type model

Abstract

"One of the recent interesting hypotheses of population growth is due to Easterlin who suggests the possibility of self-generating fluctuations in birth numbers. The present paper tries to answer the question whether feedback mechanisms produce persistent oscillations in population growth. A system of two nonlinear differential equations for the per capita capital stock and the aspiration level is studied by a phase portrait analysis. Using the Poincare-Bendixson theorem we derive sufficient conditions for the existence of a stable limit cycle." (SUMMARY IN FRE)