Where are we headed? Traverse analysis à la Hicks, Lowe, and Pasinetti

Hicks’s positive traverse and Lowe’s instrumental traverse are reconsidered through Pasinetti’s structural economic dynamics. Traverse analysis examines real capital adjustment as the economy transitions between growth paths. Pasinetti does not offer a traverse theory directly; instead, he treats non-uniform structural change as permanent and continual. He investigates the structural conditions required for full employment and concludes these cannot be maintained in dynamic economies. Together, the three approaches imply that dynamic economies are always in traverse, and that full employment cannot be a one-time policy endpoint but must be structural, dynamic, and continuous.