IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/microe/22403.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Alternative Approach to Measure HDI

Author

Listed:
  • Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan

    (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)

  • Srijit Mishra
  • B. Sudhakara Reddy

Abstract

The popularly known Human Development Index (HDI) is obtained through linear averaging (LA) of indices in three dimensions - health, education and standard of living. LA method assumes perfect substitutability among the indices. We question its appropriateness and propose an alternative measure, which is the inverse of the Euclidian distance from the ideal. Following Zeleny (1974), we refer to this, as the Displaced Ideal (DI) method. Through an axiomatic characterization, the paper shows that the advantages in the DI method are the following. Uniform, as against skewed, development is rewarded. Through an ideal path, it signals a future course of action. These signify that a given increment in any one dimension, with other dimensions remaining constant, has a greater significance for the index at a lower level than at a higher level. In other words, stagnancy in the dimension that has a lower value is more serious than stagnancy in other dimensions. Finally, an empirical illustration has been done by taking the statistics in Human Development Report 2006. We strongly propose that the DI method be considered over the LA method in the construction of HDI.

Suggested Citation

  • Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan & Srijit Mishra & B. Sudhakara Reddy, 2008. "An Alternative Approach to Measure HDI," Microeconomics Working Papers 22403, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:eab:microe:22403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/22403
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S. Subramanian & Manabi Majumdar, 2002. "On measuring deprivation adjusted for group disparities," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(2), pages 265-280.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nayak, Purusottam & Mishra, SK, 2012. "Efficiency of Pena’s P2 Distance in Construction of Human Development Indices," MPRA Paper 39022, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Tulika Tripathi & Nripendra K. Mishra, 2017. "Fuzziness in conceptualisation of women’s empowerment, access to resources and autonomy: evidence from Indian states," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 19(1), pages 60-82, April.
    3. Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan & Srijit Mishra, 2010. "Progress in human development: Are we on the right path?," International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(3), pages 199-221.
    4. 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.
    5. Issaka Dialga, 2016. "L'Indice du Développement Humain ou l'indice monétaire de développement ? Evidences par l’Analyse en Composantes Principales," Working Papers hal-01308724, HAL.
    6. Srijit Mishra & Hippu Slak Kristle Nathan, 2013. "Measuring human development index: The old, the new and the elegant," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2013-020, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    7. Dr. Riadh Ben Jelili, "undated". "Conventional and Corrected Measures of Gender-related Development Index (GDI): What Happens to the Arab Countries Ranking?," API-Working Paper Series 1007, Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait, Information Center.
    8. Upasak Das & Udaya S. Mishra, 2020. "Towards Conceptualization of a Household Educational Indicator: Incorporating Externalities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 289-309, July.
    9. Dilip Ambarkhane & Ardhendu Shekhar Singh & Bhama Venkataramani, 2016. "Developing a Comprehensive Financial Inclusion Index," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 41(3), pages 216-235, August.
    10. Srijit Mishra & Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, 2008. "On A Class of Human Development Index Measures," Development Economics Working Papers 22340, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    11. Tetteh, Godsway Korku & Goedhuys, Micheline & Konte, Maty & Mohnen, Pierre, 2020. "Towards a new index of mobile money inclusion and the role of the regulatory environment," MERIT Working Papers 2020-035, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    12. Shantanu Ghosh & Tarak Nath Sahu, 2021. "Financial inclusion and economic status of the states of India: An empirical evidence," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 50(2), July.
    13. Issaka Dialga, 2017. "A Sustainability Index of Mining Countries," Working Papers halshs-01500643, HAL.
    14. Nayak, Purusottam, 2013. "Methodological Developments in Human Development Literature," MPRA Paper 50608, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. William Joe & U. S. Mishra & K. Navaneetham, 2009. "Inequalities in Childhood Malnutrition in India: Some Evidence on Group Disparities," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 417-439.
    2. Lidia Ceriani & Chiara Gigliarano, 2015. "An Inter-temporal Relative Deprivation Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 427-443, November.
    3. S Subramanian, 2009. "Reckoning Inter‐Group Poverty Differentials In The Measurement Of Aggregate Poverty," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 46-55, February.
    4. Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2004. "Indicators of Inequality and Poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-25, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Lungile Ntsalaze & Sylvanus Ikhide, 2018. "Rethinking Dimensions: The South African Multidimensional Poverty Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 195-213, January.
    6. Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2005. "Reckoning Inter-Group Poverty Differentials in the Measurement of Aggregate Poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2005-59, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2011. "Inter-group Disparities in the Distributional Analysis of Human Development: Concepts, Measurement, and Illustrative Applications," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 27-52, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Displaced ideal; Euclidian distance; Ideal point; Linear averaging; Uniform development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    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:eab:microe:22403. 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: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    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.