World Human Development: 1870-2007

Leandro Prados de la Escosura ()

No 34, Working Papers from European Historical Economics Society (EHES)

Abstract: How has wellbeing evolved over time and across regions? How does the West compare to the Rest? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using an historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in wellbeing has taken place since 1870. The absolute gap between OECD and the Rest widened over time, but an incomplete catching up –largely explained by education- has occurred since 1913 but fading away after 1970, when the Rest fell behind the OECD in terms of longevity. As the health transition was achieved in the Rest, the contribution of life expectancy to human development improvement declined. Meanwhile, in the OECD, as longevity increased, healthy years expanded. A large variance in human development is noticeable in the Rest since 1970, with East Asia, Latin America and North Africa catching up to the OECD, while Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa falling behind.

Keywords: Wellbeing; Human Development; HDI; Life Expectancy; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I00 N30 O15 O50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 105 pages
Date: 2013-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hap and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://ehes.org/wp/EHES_No34.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: World Human Development: 1870–2007 (2015)
Working Paper: World Human Development: 1870-2007 (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hes:wpaper:0034

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