ABSTRACT
The traditional dichotomy between cycle theory and growth theory is no longer considered justifiable except in pedagogically simplified models. The expression ‘cyclical growth’ is therefore more perspi cuous than such artificial phrases as ‘trends and cycles’ and ‘business cycles and economic growth’. For that former expression at once reveals a new epistemological propensity to treat business cycles as an integral part of secular growth or to regard cycle theory as a special branch of general dynamic economics. Despite this methodological innovation there still remain a number
of substantive problems to be thrashed out, especially the conceptual problems of linear versus non-linear assumptions about cycle-growth makers and exogenous versus endogenous approaches to oscillatory mechanisms. This chapter1 is addressed to the proposition that the theory of cyclical growth must give emphasis to the non-linear and endogenous factors affecting economic change if it is to serve the scientific purposes of prediction and control most effectively. Specifically we shall discuss (a) the general nature of a comparativedynamic system capable of generating cyclical growth, (b) the oscil latory mechanism of a self-limiting type, and (c) the diagrammatic analysis to implement the abstract formulations of the preceding sections.
