As explained above, the Curse has to do with the size (cardinality) of the state
space - not the dimension of the state variables. Therefore, it cannot be resolved
merely by changing the representation of the state variables, as suggested for
instance by Ram and Babu (1988). A short discussion on this misconception
can be found in Sniedovich (1992, p. 184-185). On the positive side, it is
important to stress that not all DP models are subject to the Curse. There are
many situations (e.g. shortest path problems) where DP algorithms are efficient.
Furthermore, certain instances of notoriously difficult problems are amenable to
DP treatments. For example, as we already indicated above, for obvious reasons
the DP formulation of the generic TSP is subject to the Curse. But this does not
mean that all subclasses of this generic problem are difficult. For example, as
shown by Balas and Simonetti (2001) certain subclasses on this generic problem
can be solved by linear time DP algorithms.