A Perceived Human Development Index

The objective of the paper is to build a Perceived Human Development Index (PHDI) framework by assembling the HDI components, namely indicators on income, health and education on their subjective version. We propose here to introduce a fourth dimension linked to perceptions on work conditions, given its role in the “happiness” literature and in social policy making. We study how perceptions on satisfaction about the individual’s satisfaction with income, education, work and health are related to their objective counterparts. We use a sample of LAC countries where we take advantage of a larger set of questions on the four groups of social variables mentioned included in the Gallup World Poll by the IADB. We emphasize the impacts of objective income and age on perceptions. Complementarily, in the appendix we use the full sample of 132 countries where a smaller set of variables can be included, which provides a greater degree of freedom to study the impact of objective HDI components observed at country level on the formation of individual’s perception on income, education, work, health and life satisfaction. These exercises provide useful insights about the workings of beneficiaries’ point of view to understand the transmission mechanism of key social policy ingredients into perceptions. In particular, the so-called PHDI may provide a complementary subjective reference to the HDI. We also study how one’s satisfaction with life is established, measuring the relative importance given to income vis-à-vis health and education. Estimating these “instantaneous happiness functions” will help to assess the relative weights attributed to income, health and education in the HDI, which is a benchmark in the multidimensional social indicators toolbox used in practice.

How Do Philippine Provinces Fare in Terms of Human Development?

Ranking provinces in terms of human development, which provinces fared well and which fared badly across time in each of the components of the human development index? This Policy Note, based on Chapter 3 of the latest Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR), provides the answers. Read on...Philippines, human development, human development index (HDI), Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR), provincial human development index

A household-based Human Development Index

One of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it considers only average achievements and does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country or by population subgroups. All previous attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have also used aggregate information and there exists no HDI at the household level. This paper provides a method and illustration for calculating the HDI at the household level. This immediately allows the analysis of the HDI by any kind of population subgroups and by household socioeconomic characteristics. Furthermore, it allows to apply any kind of inequality measure to the HDI across population subgroups and over time. We illustrate our approach for 15 developing countries. Inequality in the HDI is largest in poorer countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. We also find large inequalities within countries between population subgroups, particularly by income, location, and education of the household head. We also find considerable inequality when looking at inequality measures like the Theil or the Gini coefficient; within-group inequality is, however, invariably larger than between-group inequality and inequality in the HDI within countries is of similar order of magnitude of inequality in the HDI between countries. --Human Development Index,Income Inequality,Differential Mortality,Inequality in Education

Is the Human Development Index Redundant?

It is shown that the component statistics of the HDI are highly correlated with one another. The paper demonstrates that an implication of this correlation is that a wide range of index weights produce indexes that are statistically identical to the HDI. Indexes with only two of the three HDI components are very highly correlated with the HDI. These results can be interpreted two ways: either the HDI is robust to a wide range of index weights, or it is largely redundant.Development

Human Development Index ( HDI ) Salah Satu Indikator yang Populer untuk Mengukur Kinerja Pembangunan Manusia

Tujuan pembangunan selama ini mengedepankan laju pertumbuhan ekonomi.Sedangkan pembangunan memilikii dimensi yang luas dimana manusia merupakanhakekat dari tujuan pembangunan itu. Oleh karena itu diperlukan konseppembangunan manusia yang elemen-elemennya secara tegas menggaris bawahisasaran yang ingin dicapai, yaitu hidup sehat dan panjang umur, berpendidikan dandapat menikmati hidup layak. Elemen – elemen ini yang kemudian menjadi indikatorkeberhasilan pembangunan manusia yang diukur dengan menggunakan HumanDevelopmen Index ( HDI ) atau Indeks Pembangunan Manusia ( IPM ). HDI atauIPM merupakan suatu indeks komposit yang mencakup tiga bidang pembangunanmanusia yang dianggap sangat mendasar, yang digunakan sebagai indikator yaitu(i) bidang kesehatan : usia hidup (logetivity) ; (ii) bidang pendidikan : pengetahuan(knowledge) ; dan (iii) bidang ekonomi : standar hidup layak (decent living)

A Household-Based Human Development Index

One of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it considers only average achievements and does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country or by population subgroups. All previous attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have also used aggregate information and there exists no HDI at the household level. This paper provides a method and illustration for calculating the HDI at the household level. This immediately allows the analysis of the HDI by any kind of population subgroups and by household socioeconomic characteristics. Furthermore, it allows to apply any kind of inequality measure to the HDI across population subgroups and over time. We illustrate our approach for 15 developing countries. Inequality in the HDI is largest in poorer countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. We also Þnd large inequalities within countries between population subgroups, particularly by income, location, and education of the household head. We also Þnd considerable inequality when looking at inequality measures like the Theil or the Gini coefficient; within-group inequality is, however, invariably larger than between-group inequality and inequality in the HDI within countries is of similar order of magnitude of inequality in the HDI between countries.human development index, income inequality, di_erential mortality, inequality in education.

A Human Development Index by Income Groups

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries. We suggest a relatively easy and intuitive approach which allows to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows comparisons of the level in human development of the poor and non-poor within and across countries. An empirical illustration shows large discrepancies in human development within countries especially in Africa. These discrepancies are lower the higher the HDI, but only weekly so. Inequality in income is generally higher than inequality in education and life-expectancy. --Human Development,Income Inequality,Differential Mortality,Inequality in Education

Human Development Index for rural Andhra Pradesh

The method used to measure Human Development are reviewed in order to measure Human Development Index for rural AP by considering indicators such as economic attainment, longevity and education. Using UNDP method to estimate Human Development Index, which is predominantly normative approach to club different indicators by giving weights. The estimates are worked out with and without considering inequalities in economic attainment indicator. IAMR survey data for year 2001 is used for this study. However, for making comparison over time, data and analysis undertaken in other study is also used. In other methods, primarily for the analysis of data for year 2001, inequalities in all indicators were taken into consideration to measure Human Development using both UNDP and Principal Component Analysis. The comparison of results show that there has been only marginal improvement in Human development during the 1990s in rural AP considering only inequality in economic indicator using UNDP method. However, the results may differ significantly in case inequalities in all the variables are taken into account and depending upon the methodology used as is demonstrated by analysis of data for year 2001. But unfortunately comparison of analysis over time using the modified approach was not possible due to lack of detailed data for other years.Human Development

Troubling tradeoffs in the Human Development Index

The 20th Human Development Report has introduced a new version of its famous Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI aggregates country-level attainments in life expectancy, schooling and income per capita. Each year's rankings by the HDI are keenly watched in both rich and poor countries. The main change in the 2010 HDI is that it relaxes its past assumption of perfect substitutability between its three components. However, most users will probably not realize that the new HDI has also greatly reduced its implicit weighton longevity in poor countries, relative to rich ones. A poor country experiencing falling life expectancy due to (say) a collapse in its health-care system could still see its HDI improve with even a small rate of economic growth. By contrast, the new HDI's valuations of the gains from extra schooling seem unreasonably high -- many times greater than the economic returns to schooling. These troubling tradeoffs could have been largely avoided using a different aggregation function for the HDI, while still allowing imperfect substitution. While some difficult value judgments are faced in constructing and assessing the HDI, making its assumed tradeoffs more explicit would be a welcome step.Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,Rural Poverty Reduction,Labor Policies,Debt Markets