Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 1 (1998), Issue 4, Pages 269-281
doi:10.1155/S1026022697000277

Discrete dynamics in transitional economies

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Marina Vcherashnaya Rosser

Program in Economics, College of Business, James Madison University, Harrisonburg 22807, VA, USA

Received 23 June 1997

Copyright © 1998 J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Marina Vcherashnaya Rosser. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper traces the transition from planned command socialism to market capitalism and the accompanying complex non-linear dynamics involved. Long wave chaotic hysteretic investment cycles emerge under socialism leading to crisis and breakdown. Macroeconomic collapse occurs with bifurcations of coordination structures during transition. During recovery, transitional cobweb labor market dynamics exhibit chaos, fractal basin boundaries between coexisting non-chaotic attractors, discontinuous phase transitions, strange attractors, and cascades of infinitely many period-doubling bifurcations.