11/2 Essay: Since this is a course on human development, I think you should be aware there exists a “Human Development Index (HDI)”. This index attempts to quantify the level of human development of a country. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compiles the HDI of 189 countries in their annual Human Development Report. You can see the latest rankings here. It attempts to place people at the center of the development process in terms of economic debate, policy, and advocacy, and is framed in terms of whether people are able to “be” and “do” desirable things in life. The indicators used in the 2020 report were life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling for children, mean years of schooling for adults, and gross national income per capita. These indicators are used to create a health index, an education index, and an income index, each with a value between 0 and 1. Read this for an overview.

Do you think additional information or data could be added to the HDI calculation to possibly improve it or make it a more accurate measurement of human development? If yes, what things? If no, why no? Keep in mind the conversation with Tyler Cowen.

The HDI uses the indicators of life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling for children, mean years of schooling for adults, and gross national income per capita in attempt to quantify the level of human development of a country. I think this is a good start and covers the most basic parts in trying to access the development of countries. However, I believe that it could also include gender equality in the sense of women being able to vote. Having equality in a country in all aspects of life, not just in women’s rights, is important to development of a country because that is when a country is able to be full and everyone can contribute to it. I think the type of government could be part of this index as well because many articles or videos we have learned about have shown that democratic governments prove the best for human development. Unemployment rate might also be an indicator that should be added because it could show how many people are able to support themselves, or use their education to actually do something. Lastly, I think something in terms of causes of death in countries could be added. This might be too broad to include in the index, but my thought is that if it is figured out why many people die, not due to age, it would better aide in human development. It would show which countries have better healthcare systems or ways of life that promote longer life or death due to old age. To make the HDI more accurate, I think it would need to look at the numbers and facts leading up to the final numbers for the health, education, and income indexes. Looking at how these indexes were obtained could give more insight into the development of each country. Also, instead of looking at countries as a whole, it could be more accurate to break it down to smaller regions within each country and give an index to each smaller region. This would allow people to see the disparities within different areas and show what is actually going on within each country.