Ravallion (2012a) argues that the Human Development Index (HDI) embeds questionable tradeoffs between the dimensions used to compute the index. To alleviate these problems he proposes the adoption of one of the indices developed by Chakravarty (2003). In this paper I identify the following...

In 2010 the UNDP unveiled a new methodology for the calculation of the Human Development Index (HDI). In this paper I investigate the normative and practical properties of this change vis a vis the original formulation of the HDI in 1990. The main conceptual innovation of the new index can be...

In 2010 the UNDP unveiled a new methodology for the calculation of the Human Development Index (HDI). In this paper I investigate the merits of this change by evaluating the tradeoffs between the core dimensions of wellbeing implied by the index and try to understand the extent to which those...

In 2010 the UNDP unveiled a new methodology for the calculation of the Human Development Index (HDI). In this paper I investigate the normative and practical properties of this change vis a vis the original formulation of the HDI in 1990. The main conceptual innovation of the new index can be...

The distribution of firms’ growth and firms’ sizes is a topic under intense scrutiny. In this paper, we show that a thermodynamic model based on the maximum entropy principle, with dynamical prior information, can be constructed that adequately describes the dynamics and distribution of...

Many people object to the creation of a market for kidneys on the grounds that such reform would hurt those patients unable to afford the market price of a kidney and that donors do not understand the risks they’re taking when donating. In this paper, we propose a mechanism, the kidney...

When evaluating the rationality of a player in an epistemic model of a noncooperative game one has to examine counterfactuals such as ``what would happen if the player were to do what he actually does not do?'' In this paper I develop an epistemic model of a normal form game where...

In this paper I provide a solution to Proebsting's Paradox, an argument that appears to show that the investment rule known as the Kelly criterion can lead a decision maker to invest a higher fraction of his wealth the more unfavorable the odds he faces are and, as a consequence, risk an...

When evaluating the rationality of a player in a game one has to examine counterfactuals such as "what would happen if the player were to do what he does not do?" In this paper I develop a model of a normal form game where counterfactuals of this sort are evaluated as in the philosophical...