The paper suggests that groups should be given a more central role than they generally are in the capability approach. Being a member of a group or groups is an intrinsic aspect of human life: the quality of groups with which individuals identify forms an important direct contribution to their...

"Quand les riches se font la guerre ce sont les pauvres qui meurent' Jean-Paul Sartre Le Diable et le Bon Dieu (1951) This paper reviews the effect of armed conflicts on development and, in particular, on the prospects of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It explores the economic...

This paper uses Polanyi's 1944 analysis of policy change—in which there are long-term swings from state regulation to markets and back again, as the consequences of one regime lead to political reactions that in turn reverse the policies. It shows how the Polanyi analysis continued to apply...

The well-known Human Development Index (HDI) encompasses only three rather basic aspects of human welfare. This paper aims to go beyond this, by identifying 11 categories of human development. We next propose plausible candidates as indicators of these categories. We then estimate correlations...

The human development impact of decentralization is the central focus of this paper, which addresses evolving patterns of fiscal decentralization in Argentina based on health and education indicators. The authors use previously unavailable data to look at decentralization in Argentina over time,...

The idea that measures of happiness, or subjective well-being, should be used as the sole (or dominant) measure of country progress has gained considerable support. This paper traces the origins of the approach in the works of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century utilitarians, whose...

This paper contrasts the impact of the financial crisis of 2008 on poor countries and poor people with the debt crisis of the 1980s. The financial crisis of the 2000S affected more regions of the world but its effects on particular countries were more heterogeneous, varying according to...

The paper reviews experience in advancing Human Development (HD) since 1970 by investigating behaviour among countries that made the largest improvement in HD and those that made the least improvement. The paper provides evidence on a range of indicators for the three best (and worst) performers...