IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jomega/v33y2005i5p385-390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring human development via data envelopment analysis: the case of Asia and the Pacific

Author

Listed:
  • Despotis, D.K.

Abstract

The United Nations Development Program introduced in 1990 the Human Development Index (HDI), which ever since is published annually in the Human Development Report. In this paper, the assessment of the HDI is reconsidered in the light of data envelopment analysis (DEA). The new approach is applied to the countries of the regional aggregate of Asia and the Pacific. Human development is benchmarked on the basis of empirical observations of best practice countries. First, on the same line with HDI, we develop a DEA-like linear programming model to assess the relative performance of the countries in terms of human development. Then we extend our calculations with a post-DEA goal-programming model to derive estimates of a new development index by using optimal weights for the socioeconomic indicators. Finally, we estimate the relative efficiency of the countries in converting income to human development. We develop and solve for this purpose a pure DEA model with variable returns to scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Despotis, D.K., 2005. "Measuring human development via data envelopment analysis: the case of Asia and the Pacific," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 385-390, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:33:y:2005:i:5:p:385-390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-0483(04)00096-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    2. Hicks, Norman & Streeten, Paul, 1979. "Indicators of development: The search for a basic needs yardstick," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 567-580, June.
    3. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Zhu, Joe, 1999. "An investigation of returns to scale in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-11, February.
    4. Desai, Meghnad, 1991. "Human development : Concepts and measurement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(2-3), pages 350-357, April.
    5. Sagar, Ambuj D. & Najam, Adil, 1998. "The human development index: a critical review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 249-264, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. D K Despotis, 2005. "A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(8), pages 969-980, August.
    2. Stéphane Blancard & Jean-François Hoarau, 2011. "Optimizing the new formulation of the United Nations' human development index: An empirical view from data envelopment analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(1), pages 989-1003.
    3. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    4. Nicola Amendola & Giacomo Gabbuti & Giovanni Vecchi, 2023. "On some problems of using the Human Development Index in economic history," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 27(4), pages 477-505.
    5. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2007. "International inequality and polarization in living standards, 1870-2000 : evidence from the Western World," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp07-05, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    6. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2010. "Improving Human Development: A Long‐Run View," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 841-894, December.
    7. Adler, Nicole & Yazhemsky, Ekaterina & Tarverdyan, Ruzanana, 2010. "A framework to measure the relative socio-economic performance of developing countries," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 73-88, June.
    8. Panagiotis Ravanos & Giannis Karagiannis, 2021. "A VEA Benefit-of-the-Doubt Model for the HDI," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 27-46, May.
    9. Mangaraj, B.K. & Aparajita, Upali, 2020. "Constructing a generalized model of the human development index," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2004. "On the Measurement of Human Well-being: Fuzzy Set Theory and Sen's Capability Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-16, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Jeni Klugman & Francisco Rodríguez & Hyung-Jin Choi, 2011. "The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 249-288, June.
    12. Aleksandra Maksimovska & Aleksandar Stojkov, 2019. "Composite Indicator of Social Responsiveness of Local Governments: An Empirical Mapping of the Networked Community Governance Paradigm," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 669-706, July.
    13. Chris Tofallis, 2013. "An automatic-democratic approach to weight setting for the new human development index," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1325-1345, October.
    14. Salih, Siddig Abdulmageed, 2011. "Comprehensive Human Development: Realities and Aspirations," Islamic Economic Studies, The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), vol. 19, pages 19-49.
    15. Zhu, Joe, 2000. "Further discussion on linear production functions and DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(3), pages 611-618, December.
    16. Robert Stewart & Murshed Chowdhury & Vaalmikki Arjoon, 2021. "Bank stability and economic growth: trade-offs or opportunities?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 827-853, August.
    17. Ülengin, Füsun & Kabak, Özgür & Önsel, Sule & Aktas, Emel & Parker, Barnett R., 2011. "The competitiveness of nations and implications for human development," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 16-27, March.
    18. Elizabeth Stanton, 2007. "The Human Development Index: A History," Working Papers wp127, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    19. Kaoru Tone, 2001. "On Returns to Scale under Weight Restrictions in Data Envelopment Analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 31-47, July.
    20. Cesaroni, Giovanni & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Van de Woestyne, Ignace, 2017. "Global and local scale characteristics in convex and nonconvex nonparametric technologies: A first empirical exploration," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(2), pages 576-586.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:33:y:2005:i:5:p:385-390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/375/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.