Cyclical strategies in two-dimensional optimal control models: Necessary conditions and existence (Q684782)

The paper studies nonlinear optimal control problems (in economics and management science) with two state variables and a scalar control. The purpose is to establish conditions under which cyclical control policies could be optimal. Under a somewhat restrictive assumption of concavity of the Hamiltonian in states and control it is possible to characterize necessary conditions that may lead to cyclical policies. It turns out that also in problems where the Hamiltonian is separable in states and control, cyclical policies could emerge. The author suggests a research strategy where ``one may look for economic models that meet these necessary conditions and may finally try to prove existence of stable limit cycles for an given economic framework''. To the reviewer, this sounds too much of letting the available tools decide what problems we should be interested in solving.