A REPLY TO GUCCIONE AND GILLEN
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1978.tb00248.x |
| Author | R. J. Dixon,A. P. Thirlwall |
| Date | 01 June 1978 |
| Published date | 01 June 1978 |
Scottish Journal
of
Political Economy,
Vol.
25,
No.
2,
June
1978
A
REPLY
TO
GUCCIONE AND
GILLEN
R.
J.
DIXON
AND
A.
P.
THIRLWALL*
University
of
Kent at Canterbury
Guccione and Gillen now accuse
us
of “one technical error on
a
very essential
point”.
We
cannot believe that they mean what they say. It may be true that
the condition for growth rate stability becomes more stringent the more
regions that are added to the model, but only on the assumption that all
regions have the same parameter values which, as the authors admit, is
“rather artificial”. It is easily shown that
if
different regions have different
(reasonable) parameter values the dominant characteristic root may be
greater or less than unity. The roots may also be imaginary leading to growth
rate fluctuations. Thus what happens to the stability of the system as more
regions are added depends on the values of the parameters.
We
conceded in
our earlier reply to Guccione and Gillen that the number of regions is im-
portant. If they would concede that the values of the parameters also matter,
in the general case where the values of the same parameters differ between
regions, there would be no difference between us.
212
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