Is the ‘Developing World’ Changing? A Dynamic and Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Sergio Tezanos Vázquez and Andy Sumner
Additional contact information
Sergio Tezanos Vázquez: Cátedra de Cooperación Internacional y con Iberoamérica, Universidad de Cantabria
Andy Sumner: King’s International Development Institute, King’s College London

The European Journal of Development Research, 2016, vol. 28, issue 5, No 4, 847-874

Abstract: Abstract Existing classifications of developing countries have been based on – or dominated by – income per capita. Even those deemed to be ‘alternatives’ to the income classification include income per capita as a main component. This article proposes an alternative approach to classifying countries based on cluster analysis that allows us to identify the key development characteristics of each cluster of countries. We build five clusters of developing countries and consider changes over time since the late 1990s. We find that there is neither a simple ‘linear representation of development levels’ (from low- to high- development countries) nor a ‘linear dynamic of development’ (as if groups were ‘immutable’ and countries were just trying to accommodate themselves to the ‘established’ groups), which implies that the dominant international classification needs review. Instead our multidimensional and dynamic taxonomy offers a more nuanced understanding of the diversity of challenges of developing countries and their evolution over time.

Keywords: development classifications; developing countries; development studies; income per capita classification; cluster analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/ejdr.2015.57 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:28:y:2016:i:5:d:10.1057_ejdr.2015.57

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41287/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/ejdr.2015.57

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of Development Research is currently edited by Spencer Henson and Natalia Lorenzoni

More articles in The European Journal of Development Research from Palgrave Macmillan, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().