SPINDLES AND COEXISTING ATTRACTORS IN A DYNAMIC-MODEL OF INTERDEPENDENT CONSUMER-BEHAVIOR - A NOTE

This paper studies interdependent consumer behavior in R2. The model o f interaction is such that an individual's demand pattern is not only influenced by the own past consumption decisions but also by those of another person to whom this individual is related in one way or anothe r. The paper concentrates on studying Hopf-bifurcations as well as the coexistence of several attractors, more precisely, the coexistence of a closed invariant curve with at least one other locally stable attra ctor which is a cycle of relatively low periodicity (3, 15). A 'revers ed' Hopf-bifurcation exists taking the complicated interactions back i nto a unique, globally stable fixed point.