Relaxation oscillations in the history of business cycles from 1928 to 1941

Jean-Marc Ginoux and Franck Jovanovic

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2024, vol. 31, issue 3, 400-427

Abstract: To date no satisfactory reason has been given to explain why no economist succeeded in proposing a business cycle model with nonlinear oscillations before Richard Goodwin. This article investigates the attempts of economists to model endogenous macrodynamic fluctuations with relaxation oscillations before 1941. It clarifies a common error between self-maintained oscillations and relaxation oscillations. It demonstrates that Van der Pol’s work opened three research programs in economics: relaxation oscillations, self-maintained oscillations, and damped oscillations maintained by exogenous and erratic impulses. It establishes that in 1941 Yves Rocard demonstrated that relaxation oscillations for modelling business cycles was a dead end.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2023.2292799

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