On the dynamics of knowledge-based economic growth

A geometric approach to characterize the solutions of higher-dimensional dynamic optimization problems is applied to a model of knowledge-based economic growth. The characterization reveals a variety of growth patterns, ranging from sustained growth to stagnation. Growth processes exhibit a turnpike property, reaching as rapidly as possible the path along which human and physical capital are equally productive at the margin and evolving along it thereafter. Some growth processes display overshooting behavior and some are sensitive to threshold capital stocks.