Hysteretic convergence in a shockless economy
Shane Hutton
The purpose of this paper is to study a model of hysteresis in
economics. We begin with a general overview of hysteresis and define
the Preisach model. The Preisach model is the basis of an economic
model developed by Piscitelli, Grinfeld, Lamba, & Cross (1999). One
of the basic theorems about their model is concerned with convergence
in a shockless economy. We show that the proof of this theorem in
Piscitelli et al. (1999) is flawed by giving counterexamples to some
crucial assertions. However, after considering multiple examples, we
were unable to find a counterexample to the theorem itself.