Comparative exponential dichotomies and column diagonal dominance

It is shown that the dichotomy obtained by Lazer for diagonally dominant linear systems is a weaker condition than that of exponential dichotomy but that the two conditions are equivalent in the case of bounded coefficients. Thus Fink's result that exponential decay of all solutions implies exponential dichotomy does not extend to the case of mixed growth and decay. It is also shown that column dominant systems of mixed sign admit exponential dichotomies when the coefficients are bounded.