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A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis

  • Theoretical Paper
  • Published:
Journal of the Operational Research Society

Abstract

To consider different aspects of life when measuring human development, the United Nations Development Program introduced the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is a composite index of socioeconomic indicators that reflect three major dimensions of human development: longevity, knowledge and standard of living. In this paper, the assessment of the HDI is reconsidered in the light of data envelopment analysis (DEA). Instead of a simple rank of the countries, human development is benchmarked on the basis of empirical observations of best practice countries. First, on the same line as HDI, we develop a DEA-like model to assess the relative performance of the countries in human development. Then we extend our calculations with a post-DEA model to derive global estimates of a new development index by using common weights for the socioeconomic indicators. Finally, we introduce the transformation paradigm in the assessment of human development. We develop a DEA model to estimate the relative efficiency of the countries in converting income to knowledge and life opportunities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Piraeus, Greece

    D K Despotis

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  1. D K Despotis
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Correspondence to D K Despotis.

Appendix

Appendix

Results obtained by the index-maximizing model and the transformation approach: top 20 countries in the HDI rank plus the intra-group efficient countries

Table A1

Table 8 Table a1
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Despotis, D. A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis. J Oper Res Soc 56, 969–980 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601927

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601927

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