Hicksian Visions and Vignettes on (Non-Linear) Trade Cycle Theories

Abstract

Hicks theorized about the trade cycle, from many perspectives, over the whole span of his long, fertile and distinguished profes- sional life. Beginning with thoughts on an equilibrium approach to the problem of the trade cycle in the early 30s, traversing1 those disequilibrium workhorses of macrodynamics, IS-LM and Multiplier- Accelerator models, he returned, in hunted hare fashion, to a Robert- sonian starting point. In this paper I attempt to construct a math- ematical tapestry of some of these Hicksian visions and vignettes, concentrating on (non-linear) trade cycle theories. I suggest that there are still pearls of analytical wisdom, on the non-linear dynam- ics of trade cycle theory, to be extracted from A Contribution to the Theory of the Trade Cycle (CTTC). The unlikely link between the way an economic conundrum, inherent in CTTC, was resolved and the resolution of (Part B of) Hilbert s 16th Problem for Liénard s equation is brie y mentioned.