Using Principal Components to Produce an Economic and Social Development Index: An Application to Latin America and U.S. States

Miles Cahill () and Nicholas Sanchez ()
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Miles Cahill: Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross
Nicholas Sanchez: Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross

No 2, Working Papers from College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a principal components methodology (based on Ram (1982) and Srinivasan (1994)) for determining the weights for a set of indicators in a composite index of development. The procedure is applied to a 36 variable data set consisting of 1990 data for 19 Latin American countries and corresponding 1990 and 1960 data for the individual U. S. states. GDP is excluded from the index. The paper compares the results to other well-known indices, and uses the combined data set to better understand the level and scope of development in each region and over time.

Keywords: Human; Development; Index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2000-06
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Published in Atlantic Economic Journal, September 2001, Vol. 29:3, pp. 311-329.

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