Migration, both within and beyond borders, has become an increasingly prominent theme in domestic and international debates, and is the topic of the 2009 Human Development Report (HDR09). The starting point is that the global distribution of capabilities is extraordinarily unequal, and that this...

This paper introduces a new and comprehensive Human Development Index (HDI) trends dataset for 135 countries and 40 years of annual data. We apply this dataset to answer several empirical questions related to the evolution of human development over the last 40 years. The data reveal overall...

The new century opened with an unprecedented declaration of solidarity and determination to rid the world of poverty. In 2000 the UN Millennium Declaration, adopted at the largest-ever gathering of heads of state, committed countries — rich and poor — to doing all they can to eradicate...

The 1996 Report opens with a fundamental statement: "Human development is the end - economic growth a means." The Report argues that economic growth, if not properly managed, can be jobless, voiceless, ruthless, rootless and futureless, and thus detrimental to human development. The quality of...

This paper examines the variation across countries and evolution over time of life expectancy. Using historical data going back to the beginning of the 20th century several basic facts about the relationship between national income and life expectancy are established. The paper shows that even...

The 2011 Human Development Report argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together – and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals. Bold action is needed on...

Commonly available survey data for developing countries often do not include income or expenditure data. This data limitation puts severe constraints on standard poverty and inequality analyses. We provide a simple approach to simulate household income based on publicly available Demographic and...

Environmental constraints have always had and will always have important consequences for human development. It has sometimes contributed to or even caused the reversal of such development. The possibility that such constraints will grow significantly throughout this century raises the concern...

This paper argues against a natural resource curse for human development. We find evidence that changes in human development from 1970 to 2005, proxied by changes in the Human Development Index, are positively and significantly correlated with natural resource abundance. While our results are...

The purpose of this background paper is: i) to synthesize the discussions regarding the concept of human development, so as to inform the 2010 Report’s definition, and ii) drawing on the extensive policy and academic literatures, to propose relationships between the concept of human...