IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v6y2018i2p32-d148063.html

The Human Development Index as Isoelastic GDP: Evidence from China and Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Gordon Bechtel

    (Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7150, USA)

Abstract

Gross domestic product (GDP) is shown to possess three new desiderata. First, GDP is almost perfectly correlated over time with the first principal component of its three classical indicators. Second, this principal component is in a class of weighted indexes ancillary to GDP. Each ancillary index informs policy as to allocation of resources over the three GDP indicators. Third, a country-specific power of GDP almost perfectly predicts the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI). These findings are brought by principal components and regression analyses of time series supplied by the World Bank and the United Nations. Axiomatic HDI computation is carried out without survey sampling, probabilistic inference, significance testing, or even HDI data.

Suggested Citation

  • Gordon Bechtel, 2018. "The Human Development Index as Isoelastic GDP: Evidence from China and Pakistan," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-9, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:6:y:2018:i:2:p:32-:d:148063
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/6/2/32/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/6/2/32/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William D. Nordhaus & James Tobin, 1973. "Is Growth Obsolete?," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Economic and Social Performance, pages 509-564, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andrei Bougrov & Robert Johnson & Benno Ndulo & Pedro Paez & Avinash Persaud & Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul & Akhtar Aziz Zeti & Charles Goodhart & Jomo Kwame Sundaram & Youssef Boutros-Ghali & José Anto, 2010. "The Stiglitz Report," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03415638, HAL.
      • Andrei Bougrov & Robert Johnson & Benno Ndulo & Pedro Paez & Avinash Persaud & Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul & Akhtar Aziz Zeti & Charles Goodhart & Jomo Kwame Sundaram & Youssef Boutros-Ghali & José Anto, 2010. "The Stiglitz Report," Working Papers hal-03415638, HAL.
    3. Andrés Marchante & Bienvenido Ortega & José Sánchez, 2006. "The Evolution of Well-Being in Spain (1980–2001): A Regional Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 76(2), pages 283-316, April.
    4. William D. Nordhaus & James Tobin, 1972. "Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect, Volume 5, Economic Growth," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number nord72-1, March.
    5. Antonella Ferrara & Rosanna Nisticò, 2015. "Regional well-being indicators and dispersion from a multidimensional perspective: evidence from Italy," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 55(2), pages 373-420, December.
    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. Goletsis, Y. & Chletsos, M., 2011. "Measurement of development and regional disparities in Greek periphery: A multivariate approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 174-183, December.
    2. Gramkow, Camila, 2020. "Green fiscal policies: An armoury of instruments to recover growth sustainably," Estudios y Perspectivas – Oficina de la CEPAL en Brasilia 45418, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    3. Barbara Cavalletti & Matteo Corsi, 2018. "“Beyond GDP” Effects on National Subjective Well-Being of OECD Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 931-966, April.
    4. Savatore Puglisi & Ionuț Virgil Șerban, 2019. "Beyond Gdp: Which Options To Better Represent Modern Socio-Economic Progress?," Sociology and Social Work Review, International Society for projects in Education and Research, vol. 3(1), pages 17-32, June.
    5. Guido Bonatti & Enrico Ivaldi, 2016. "Un indicatore per la misurazione della partecipazione culturale e sociale nelle regioni italiane," ECONOMIA E DIRITTO DEL TERZIARIO, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 283-302.
    6. Amjad Ali & Marc Audi & Chan Bibi & Yannick Roussel, 2021. "The Impact of Gender Inequality and Environmental Degradation on Human Well-being in the Case of Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 92-99.
    7. Hamilton,Kirk E. & Helliwell,John F. & Woolcock,Michael, 2016. "Social capital, trust, and well-being in the evaluation of wealth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7707, The World Bank.
    8. Quamrul H. Ashraf & David N. Weil & Joshua Wilde, 2011. "The Effect of Interventions to Reduce Fertility on Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 17377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dimitrios A. Giannias, 1998. "A Quality of Life Based Ranking of Canadian Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(12), pages 2241-2251, December.
    10. Zoltán Nagy & Tekla Sebestyén Szép, 2017. "Sustainable Energy in Post-Communist East- Central Europe - A Comprehensive Study," Theory Methodology Practice (TMP), Faculty of Economics, University of Miskolc, vol. 13(02), pages 59-70.
    11. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2018. "Spleen: the failures of the cliometric school," HHB Working Papers Series 14, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    12. Madsen, Jakob & Strulik, Holger, 2020. "Technological change and inequality in the very long run," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    13. Quentin Couix, 2019. "Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 1341-1378, November.
    14. Remzi Baris Tercioglu, 2019. "Rethinking growth and inequality in the US: What is the role of measurement of GDP?," Working Papers 1906, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2020.
    15. Vardon, Michael & Burnett, Peter & Dovers, Stephen, 2016. "The accounting push and the policy pull: balancing environment and economic decisions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 145-152.
    16. Ilan Noy & Rio Yonson, 2018. "Economic Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards: A Survey of Concepts and Measurements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-16, August.
    17. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2018. "A Modest Proposal For Augmenting The Gross Domestic Product Of Italy, Allowing Greater Public Spending, Employment, And Graft," MPRA Paper 89746, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kahn, Matthew E. & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Cities and the Environment," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 405-465, Elsevier.
    19. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2020. "Reconstructing The Past: The Measurement Of Aggregate Product," MPRA Paper 97042, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Brocek, Frantisek & Lalinsky, Tibor, 2017. "Welfare in Slovakia and the EU — an alternative to GDP per capita," MPRA Paper 83456, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:gam:jecomi:v:6:y:2018:i:2:p:32-:d:148063. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.