Global indeterminacy of the equilibrium in the Chamley model of endogenous growth in the vicinity of a Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation

• We study the global dynamics of the Chamley (1993) model.
• We apply the Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation theorem.
• We find the possibility for global indeterminacy and low-growth trapping regions to emerge.

This paper studies the dynamics implied by the Chamley (1993) model, a variant of the two-sector model with an implicit characterization of the learning function. We first show that under some “regularity” conditions regarding the learning function, the model has (a) one steady state, (b) no steady states or (c) two steady states (one saddle and one non-saddle). Moreover, via the Bogdanov–Takens theorem, we prove that for critical regions of the parameters space, the dynamics undergoes a particular global phenomenon, namely the homoclinic bifurcation. Because these findings imply the existence of a continuum of equilibrium trajectories, all departing from the same initial value of the predetermined variable, the model exhibits global indeterminacy.