EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

On Some Problems of Using the Human Development Index in Economic History

Nicola Amendola, Giacomo Gabbuti and Giovanni Vecchi

No 527, CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: We argue against the use of composite indices, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), in economic history. We show that the HDI can be interpreted as a formal representation of the analyst’s ethical system. We support our claim by introducing a new class of paternalistic social welfare functions (Graaff 1957, Mas-Colell, 1995) which encompasses all the HDI formulas put forth by the literature. The theoretical framework is illustrated by an empirical investigation of the long-run evolution of Italians’ living standards and civic liberties. We conclude that any history based on composite indices is one where both data and history play a minor role, if any.

Keywords: Human development index; Economic wellbeing; Composite indices; Living standards; CES; Social welfare functions; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N01 N3 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2021-11-09, Revised 2021-11-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his, nep-hme and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ceistorvergata.it/RePEc/rpaper/RP527.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On some problems of using the Human Development Index in economic history (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: On Some Problems of Using the Human Development Index in Economic History (2021) Downloads
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:rtv:ceisrp:527

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
https://ceistorvergata.it

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Barbara Piazzi ().

 
Page updated 2024-11-02
Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:527