Comparing Human Development Patterns Across Countries: Is it Possible to Reconcile Multidimensional Measures and Intuitive Appeal?

The aims of this paper are two. The first is to to present a framework that facilitates the identification and analysis of human development patterns in terms of outcomes performance from a cross and time perspective. The second is to find a method that is effective in summarizing different dimensions that concerns human development progress. We consider human development progress as enhanced throughout virtuous synergies among positive human development outcomes and between these and `positive' economic outcomes. The methodology aims to take into consideration these synergies, while the theoretical framework captures different patterns of human development progress through the distinction between the social dimensions (SD) and the economic dimensions (ED) as `command over resources'. Although this framework is not a sufficient guide for policy, the research findings are an explicit recognition of the need to analyse and to integrate economic and social policies. Furthermore, the explorative empirical results highlight different human development patterns between countries and their connection to the different policies adopted by each country (e.g. by transition economies) and by the impact of different type of crises.