It has often been claimed that it is impossible to measure human capabilities but within the methodological conventions of household survey design, we show that some non-financial capability indicators do already exist and we demonstrate how similar indicators, covering a wide range of life...

The paper is motivated by sustained interest in the capabilities approach to welfare economics combined with the purported paucity of economic statistics that measure capabilities at the individual level. Specifically, it takes a focal account of normatively desirable capabilities constitutive...

Measuring the output of men and women in science and technology has previously been mostly restricted to case studies or small-scale surveys. Based on an analysis of patent and publication databases, this paper applies a methodology to systematically assign the gender to the names of inventors...

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries. We suggest a relatively easy and intuitive approach which allows to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows comparisons...

What is the relationship between social welfare, safety nets and economic freedom? Arguably, if economic freedom (EF) promotes growth and if it trickles down EF promotes larger freedoms (e.g. a healthy and productive life, free from want and deprivation). However, higher EF by definition entails...

This paper presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world's population. The MPI...

This essay inquires into the characteristics and historical possibilities of a Developmental State built on democracy, in opposition to the East Asian Developmental State historical model. After a brief introduction, this model and the capitalism development the underdeveloped peoples crave are...

This paper cuts adrift the mainstream approach to the legal-origins debate on the law-growth nexus by integrating both overall economic and human components in our understanding of how regulation quality and the rule of law lie at the heart of economic and inequality adjusted human developments....

Hitherto financial drivers of human development have been unexplored by the UNDP. This paper assesses determinants of human development from financial dynamics of depth, efficiency, size and activity on data from 38 developing countries. While the importance of financial activity, size and depth...

In examining some big questions on African development, we provide evidence that dynamics of some development indicators could support both endogenous and neoclassical growth theories in the convergence debate. This paper investigates convergence in real per capita GDP and inequality adjusted...