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Economics

University of Massachusetts Amherst

2006

HDI

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Accounting For Inequality: A Proposed Revision Of The Human Development Index, Elizabeth Stanton Jan 2006

Accounting For Inequality: A Proposed Revision Of The Human Development Index, Elizabeth Stanton

PERI Working Papers

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a country-level measure of social welfare based on national values for average life expectancy, rates of adult literacy and school enrollment, and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Since HDI is based entirely on national averages it can provide only limited information about distribution within countries. The distribution of access to key resources is an important determinant of the effect of health, education and income on both individual well-being and on the aggregate well-being of a population as a whole. This paper makes a case for the importance of inequality to measuring social welfare; …