Abstract
This paper presents a variant human development index H. It resembles the human development index HDI, published annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme, but it is calibrated to reflect ‘development’ as evident in the actual progression of life expectancy, education and income shown over 1990–2017 by the people of the world as a whole. Index H uses the same dimensions and country statistics as the HDI but has no arbitrary parameters; all its parameters are derived from the statistics. The fundamental assumption is that humans overall choose how much education and work serves them best to improve health and income. Index H also facilitates comparison of a country’s progress over time, allowing for both ordinal and cardinal interpretations, with the world in year 2000 used as unit of development. Moreover, H provides explicit quantified valuation of health, safety and education policy. Just as the HDI has properly downplayed the importance of income in comparison with health and education, H discounts the income variable (Gross National Income), but even further.
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Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Caroline Miller and one anonymous reviewer for meticulous attention to many details of this paper to clarify it for the readers, and to a second reviewer whose comments led to a deeper perspective on development as a measure, a process that varies with time, place and opportunity.
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