On the path-dependence of economic growth

Abstract

The cumulated growth of an economy during a period of time depends on the whole economical history during this period and not only of the situation at the beginning and at the end of the interval. However, if some constraint is made on the set of possible economies, this phenomenon of history-dependence may disappear. We give a simple necessary and sufficient condition on the constraint for this to happen, generalizing results of Samuelson-Swamy and Hulten. Our approach is different, based on differential and symplectic geometry. We also solve the same question for a subsector of the economy. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.