We study the mechanism of inequality due to educational lock-in effects. Recent research on inequality such as Brock and Durlauf (2000a, b) and Durlauf (1999a, b, 2000) has emphasized the fact that the composition and behavior of groups to which a person belongs play an important role for...

This review discusses the use of discrete choice dynamic programming (DCDP) methods for evaluating policies of particular relevance to developing countries, such as policies to reduce child labor and increase school attendance, improve school quality, affect immigration flows, expand old-age...

Developing countries are affected by evident and persistent asymmetric income distribution. The increasing relevance of this issue to development agendas sets the need for planning tools that can support the analysis of the long-term impacts of alternative policies on income distribution. For...

The United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI) takes several dimensions ---income, school enrolment and literacy rate, longevity--- and combines them into a single figure that measures the degree of development of a given country. However, there is disagreement about (i) how to normalize the...

Economic development is a subject that generates much controversy, mainly because of the widening gaps between poor and rich nations. In the present paper, we intend to identify and explain the differences that exist both between and within the European Union states, from an economic development...

This paper analyzes the effects of increased trade and investment on population growth and the quality of life in the U.S. and Mexican border regions. The analysis on quality of life changes is based on 1990 and 2000 U.S. and Mexican census data. Quality of life is measured by a Border Human...

In a report from 2008 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development came to the conclusion that Portugal is still a country very much marked by regional asymmetries and in need of better regional governance mechanisms and policies. In the face of these conclusions it becomes...

The Human Development Index (HDI) is widely used as an aggregate measure of overall human well-being. We examine the allocations implied by the maximization of this index using a standard growth model. Maximization of the HDI leads to consumption (excluding education and health expenditures)...

We consider a weighting scheme that yields a best-case scenario for measured human development such as the official equally-weighted Human Development Index (HDI) using an approach that relies on consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency (SDE). We compare the official equally-weighted...

We consider a weighting scheme that yields the best-case scenario measurement of the Human Development Index (HDI) using an approach that relies on consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency (SDE). We compare a given hybrid composite index such as the official equally-weighted HDI to...