An Axiomatization of the Human Development Index

Eduardo Zambrano

No HDRP-2011-10, Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) from Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Abstract: In 2010 the UNDP unveiled a new methodology for the calculation of the Human Development Index (HDI). In this paper I investigate the normative and practical properties of this change vis a vis the original formulation of the HDI in 1990. The main conceptual innovation of the new index can be summarized as follows: the new HDI penalizes both low and uneven achievements across all dimensions of human development, whereas the old formulation is not sensitive to such uneven development. In practice, however, both methodologies agree considerably in terms of how they rank countries, but when they differ, the new methodology produces results more consistent with what the HDI is intended to measure: human development and capabilities, as conceptualized by Sen (1985).

Keywords: Human Development Index; Capabilites (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2011-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published as background research for the 2011 Human Development Report.

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/papers/HDRP_2011_10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: An axiomatization of the human development index (2014)
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:hdr:papers:hdrp-2011-10

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) from Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HDRO/UNDP ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).