Goodwin's nonlinear accelerator and chaotic motion (Q1096521)

Goodwin's 1951 business cycle model with a nonlinear accelerator constitutes a forced oscillator system if autonomous investment outlays are periodic. The original Goodwin model possesses the form of a Rayleigh equation which can be transformed into a van der Pol type equation. In the unforced case, the Goodwin model exhibits limit cycles if some symmetry requirements are fulfilled. By means of an application of Levi's 1982 results on irregular behavior in the strongly forced van der Pol oscillator, the paper demonstrates that the periodically forced Goodwin model possesses two stable limit cycles which enclose an infinity of unstable closed orbits. If a parameter in the forcing term is sufficiently high, the Goodwin model therefore exhibits chaotic motion for initial values located in a nonempty subset of the phase space. However, this subset is not a trapping region. After oscillating irregularly in the subset for some time, a trajectory may eventually leave the region and may converge to one of the two stable limit cycles.