General Equilibrium Vintage Capital Growth Models Displaying Periodic Solutions: A Theoretical Example.

In a dynamic general equilibrium setup, this paper highlights the role of vintages and creative destruction in business fluctuations. By stressing the forward-looking characteristic of the optimal scrapping rule, we use a standard rational expectations argument to show the constancy of the scrapping function in a linear utility function framework. Secondly, we prove that equilibrium output shows a purely periodic behavior around an exponential growth trend, the pattern of the cycle being determined by the pattern of initial conditions.